


Never Alone

by Romana_queen_of_space



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: EVERYONE is a character but I'm just adding tags once they've had some focus on them, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), more detail about ships included in notes, no big finish characters because I haven't listened to any of that yet, no war doctor, so for the purposes of this story none of that will be considered canon, the ships are MOSTLY either the canon ones or completely out there like companions who'd never met, well most of the companions and doctors anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2020-07-08 04:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19863220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romana_queen_of_space/pseuds/Romana_queen_of_space
Summary: Throughout several thousand years of time and space, many people have travelled in the TARDIS, but most of them were never destined to meet. That is until something went wrong with time and all of them were ripped from their own adventures and placed in a out of control TARDIS together. Not only that but the Doctor- or the ...Doctors? -are unconscious and it's up to the companions to figure out what's going on.OrI try and write a fic with FIFTY FOUR main characters. Don't try this at home kids.





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Here's something crazy I've wanted to write for awhile, but now I finally have watched enough Doctor Who to give it a try.
> 
> Despite the seemingly plot and action heavy first few chapters, don't be deceived. This is all just an elaborate set up for a fun all-companions-and-doctors-forced-live-together-and-what-will-they-get-up-to? kinda fic.
> 
> Fear not through, I DO have the reason for why this is all happening at least 60% worked out, (however I couldn't have claimed such a thing when I started writing)
> 
> I didn't tag everyone because I don’t want to be spamming tags for characters that are each only one-fiftieth of the cast, but I’ve tagged DoctorxRiver because I am but a mere mortal and I have my biases so they’re sure to be a big part and if I don’t tag SOMETHING no one will ever read this. (EDIT: I've changed my mind about this and now add character/relationships tags as they get significant scenes in the story.)
> 
> As for other ships that will pop up:  
> Most canon ships should be here.  
> But though 9/10 and Rose will have their mutual pining thing, it won't go beyond that. Sorry.
> 
> For non canon:  
> Barbara and Ian are idiots in love if that can really be counted as non canon.  
> The 4th Doctor had a relationship with Romana through both of her regenerations.  
> I think it's a given that if you put River and Jack in the same TARDIS they'll hook up but it won't be a romance or even really a plot point.  
> Actually River and Jack may hook up with lots of people. Even I don't know who.  
> Romana may have a slight thing for herself...  
> Yaz will have a crush on 13, but it's unrequited, in the same vain as Jack and Martha. Probably same with Sarah Jane and 4, though I feel like that's pretty much canon in Nuwho and SJA anyway?  
> I'll pair off a lot of the companions that normally would never have met into the ultimate femslash rarepairs.
> 
> And of course BrOTP all Doctors and all of their companions.

The TARDIS doors swung open as the group tumbled through. Spatters of pink slime sprayed though the doors after them and they quickly slammed them shut.

“Great, now I am going to be scrubbing slime out of my hair for ages,” Rory commented.

“Nonsense! Just take a dry dissolvent bath.” the Doctor said cheerfully. He had already raced up to the control panel and was flicking various switches and levers to send them into the time vortex.

“A what?” Rory asked.

“A dry dissolvent bath Rory! Don’t you lot ever listen,” he said.

“We don’t have those in our time Doctor,” Amy pointed out.

The Doctor looked up confused. “Well you should. You twenty-first century humans were _obsessed_ with slime.”

“No we’re not.” Amy said.

“ _Wait_ ,” the Doctor answered.

_Well, that’s ominous_ Amy thought.

“How about a trip to Noroxallyel V, the entire planet is a public bath house. They’ll have dry dissolvent baths there. Also ten mile long swimming pools and zero gravity showers. The zero gravity showers are my favourite,” the Doctor said. He rubbed his hands together in glee at the thought.

“And you’re sure that there aren’t evil robots lifeguards?” Amy asked.

“Or mind altering chemicals in the water?” Rory added.

“And it’s not front for an intergalactic human trafficking ring?” Amy added.

“Yes, yes, yes,” the Doctor answered, exasperation in his voice.

“Well then, let’s go swimming,” Amy said, satisfied.

The Doctor grinned and flicked a final lever- apparently he had already set the coordinates in anticipation- and then... and then the TARDIS shock violently, more violently than normal. Amy was thrown to the floor, and she was suddenly was aware of dozens of voices speaking, yelling or screaming all at once.

With a grown she tried to push herself up, but there was something on top of her- No, not something, _someone_. She turned her head around and saw _two_ someones on top of her. Neither of them familiar. The one on the top of the pile disentangled herself from the others and stood up carefully as the TARDIS was still shaking badly. She reached back down and helped the other person up and then helped Amy.

Now she was on her feet Amy turned to look around the console room, and despite the prior audio evidence, she was shocked to see it full to the brim with strangers. There must be around fifty people in here. The TARDIS was bigger on the inside but not _that_ big!

She turned back to the people who had fallen on top of her. They were both girls about her age. The one who helped her up had pale skin with a short brown bob and kind eyes, the other one was darker with long brown hair and space buns. Both had traces of pink slime on them from their collision with her.

“Ok, what is going on right now!?” Even shouting Amy could barely hear her own voice over all the people around her expressing similar sentiments.

“What?!” the friendly eyed one shouted back.

“Where is the Doctor?!” She thinks she hears space buns say, which is a sensible question. Hopefully he will have some answers to all this, and also hopefully everyone will shut up soon so she can hear herself speak.

She scanned the crowd again but she could see neither him nor Rory.

The TARDIS gave another particularly violent shake, and she nearly fell over again, but space buns grabbed her by the arm and steadied her. The stranger said something to her that she couldn’t quite hear, but parts of it sounded suspiciously like ‘should stay still’ and ‘avoid getting hurt’.

“Umm, hell no,” Amy responded. “I’ve got to find the Doctor and Rory.”

She shook off space bun’s arm and tried to shove her way through the crowd in the general direction of the centre console, were she had last seen the Doctor. It turned out to be a difficult endeavour, as it seemed many people were trying to do the exact same thing and as a result none of them were getting far, but eventually through expert shoving, and some small amounts of swearing, she managed to force herself through.

It’s then that she becomes acutely aware of something she definitely should have noticed earlier. This is not the TARDIS. Or at least, it’s not the TARDIS she knows. In awe, she stared up at the giant crystalline structures surrounding the control panel. As she did she saw a sort of ripple go through them which she did not like the look of at all. Time to stop taking in the scenery, she thought. She refocused her efforts on shoving her way further through the crowd.

She vaguely heard a voice drifting up from the ground shouting, “Oi! Move off, you’re going to trample them!”

Amy looked for the source of the voice and gasped. A small brunette was sitting on the floor over an unconscious body.

“Doctor!” She rushed to kneel at their side.

“Oh thank god,” Amy just about heard the brunette say to her. “You stay here, make sure no one steps on this one, I’ll protect that one.” She jerked her head and Amy followed the direction and saw a strange older man also lying unconscious nearby.... and there was another with garish coat, and she thought she saw several more amongst the sea of legs. The small brunette- who had now run over to the old man- was right, anyone unconscious in these confused crowds was in real danger.

As she was fighting off approaching legs from walking on the Doctor, a person knelt down next to them. A person she actually recognised!

“River Song?!”

The mysterious, possibly future wife of the Doctor, looked at her, and there was something in her eyes as she took Amy in that looked almost like pain, but it was gone in a second so Amy dismissed it, thinking she must be imagining things.

“What is going on?!” She shouted.

“I don’t know!” River shouted back. That worried Amy. She’d only met River once, but she had seemed like someone who should always know what was going on. Particularly when the TARDIS was involved.

Speaking of the TARDIS... the violent shaking was still a problem. But River could fly her! She was probably the only conscious person in the universe who could.

“River! Don’t worry I’ve got him,” she sneezed the Doctors shoulder. “You have to get the TARDIS under control!”

River nodded and with last lingering glance at the Doctor, she got up.

As Amy turned her attention back to the unconscious time lord, River shoved through to the control panel. She shook her head as she stared down at the controls. Seeing her mother again, after what had happened last time, and having her so clearly not know her, not _really_ , was painful, even though she should be used to these cruel tricks of time by now.

But she had a job to do, so she shoved those emotions into a little box and turned her attention to the task at hand.

The controls were different from the ones she knew so well, but the TARDIS was the TARDIS and she always had an intuition for it.

A brunette in a flowing white dress pushed though the crowd near her and started fiddling with the controls. “What has he done to her! This is _not_ an inbuilt desktop. He’s made _modifications_!” she yelled, clearly discussed at the very idea.

“As much as I would love to roast the Doctor’s mechanical skills, now may not be the best time!” River shouted back.

“But without a system standard layout, how do I know what does what! This makes the whole manual useless!”

River wonders if that was why the Doctor threw it into a supernova, but she suspects that his motive was less logical than that.

“Just use your instincts, if she wants to, the TARDIS will guide you,” she told her.

“If she can!” Another voice shouted somewhere near her. River looked around to see a small girl- probably about 16- with short dark hair in regular 20th/21st century clothes, stumble up beside her. “I’m not sure the TARDIS is in much of a place to help anyone,” the girl told them. “It is in distress. I can just feel it!”

The girl looked to be in some distress herself, though River had no idea what to do about that.

“I don’t blame her,” she yelled, focusing on the TARDIS. “This is a time ship, and its suddenly being filled with paradoxes!” She had not missed the fact that multiple versions of her husband were here, which while not unprecedented, is extremely dangerous and not something the TARDIS would be happy about.

“You can say that again!” shouted a third stranger, this one blonde, wearing a red coat and eyeing the lady in the white dress with an unreadable but significant expression.

For her part the lady in the white dress looked at the blonde with surprise and confusion. “Princess Astra?” She yelped. “But- but- how are you here! You are the sixth segment! And we were assembling it and then we were here! How can you be human again!”

The blonde stared at her, clearly horrified at what she’d said. “Oh Rassilon! You’ve come from when we we had the Key to Time? So by being here it’s been left unprotected? This could be disastrous!”

The small girl looked like she was having a near mental breakdown by this point.

River had no clue what the two ladies were talking about but she didn’t like the sound of it, and what she could surmise just confused her more, (who but a time lord would used Rassilon’s name as a curse? But that wasn’t possible... right?)

“Can we focus on one disaster at a time please?!” she yelled. She would never admit it but the stress was actually getting to her right now.

“Yes, _gladly_. If anyone has any idea where to even start I’ll get on that right away!” the lady in the white dress shouted.

“You could start with ending these petty disputes of wit and actually working together!” the small girl shouted.

“You’re quite right,” the lady in the red coat responded. River nodded in agreement. The brunette stayed still but River was pretty sure she saw a flash of guilt on her face.

River quickly ran through everything that had happened in her head, then turned her attention to the small girl. “You said you could feel her distress? What did you mean by that?!” she asked. Even with her connection she couldn’t pick up things like that.

“Well you see, I was top of my class in tests of telepathic potential.”

River did not think just any old telepath would be able to form a connection with the TARDIS, but she knew those would have to be questions for another time.

“Can you try to look deeper? See if you can find out what’s going on!” She yelled.

The girl looked doubtful. “The TARDIS’s consciousnesses is not an easy thing to read.”

“As long as it’s not a danger to you, then try. We need everything we can get.”

She turned back to the troublesome two. They were experimenting with TARDIS controls, the brunette, more hesitantly than the blonde. “Here, I think I’ve pulled up a manual interface,” the blonde yelled.

The brunette peered over to looked at what the other had found. “But that’s not right, it’s gibberish!”

River ran round the console to stare at the tiny screen with the other two. Sure enough text was flitting across the screen but she could not see any logic in it.

Someone else pushed her aside to stick their own head in. River only now noticed that several other people can come to stand round the console.

“I can see patterns in it,” the person- a young girl with a dark bob cut- said.

River glanced back at the screen over the girl’s shoulder. “Really?” she yelled, doubtfully.

“Yes, I think it’s some kind of code, though being alien it’s not like any I’ve seen before! Still, code is code!” she shouted.

“Well what do you think it’s trying to do?” asked the blonde.

“I don’t know but whatever it is it does not appear to be working! It seems to be stuck in some kind of feedback loop!” the girl replied.

“No. It feels like the TARDIS is echoing. Everything I sense from it keeps getting multiplied and amplified until I can barely stand it and then it stops suddenly and builds up again.” the young girl with the telepathic powers shouted.

The brunette lady looked up sharply. “Wait!” she yelled. “I read in TARDIS manual that you should never hook up the mainframes of two TARDIS of the same type because they may not recognise the other as a foreign entity, and then when one tries to execute an action, both will do the next command, and then both of them will respond to both of those commands, so it’s doing everything four times over-“

“-and then the next action will be done eight times and so on and so on, until it can’t take it anymore!” the blonde interrupted. She had come to stand right in the brunette’s personal space, and was looking way too excited for the circumstances.

“At which point it crashes, all actions fail and the whole thing starts over again!” the brunette finished. She was looking at the blonde with curiosity and an intensely that was nether good nor bad, just intense.

The brunette broke her gaze away from the other girl first and turned to look at the other people around the control panel. The blonde followed her example.

“I’m sorry, but what does that mean?!” the telepathic girl asked. “You think there is another TARDIS somehow connected to this one?”

River looks around at the some of the unconscious figures she could just about see around the room. “Multiple Doctors, multiple TARDIS!” she said, more to herself then anything, as the understanding finally hit her.

“Exactly!” the brunette yelled. “But they’re co existing in the same space and time!”

“Wait, how can there be multiple Doctors?” genius computer girl with the bob asked.

“We travel in time!” telepathic girl told her.

River took in the probable confirmation that all these people were past companions of the Doctor, and put it away to unpack later.

“Well I know _that_!” computer girl yelled, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Oh, you mean he’s crossing his own timeline? Isn’t that rather dangerous?!”

“Incredibly so!” the brunette lady shouted in frustration.

“Never mind that now. We have to move the TARDIS into it’s fully manual mode!” the small blonde ordered.

River watched her get down beneath the console and removed a panel. The brunette and one of the people who had gathered around them- a woman with blonde hair and smart clothes- knelt on either side of her to pear into the inner workings of the control panel.

Despite being able to fly the TARDIS River had little to no knowledge of the mechanics, so she decided to talk to the young girls about the next steps and left the three ladies too it.

***

Romana stared at all the wires and circuits in the heart of the control panel. She tried to go through everything she’d read in the manual, but that had been awhile ago, and a lot had happened since, so she had to reluctantly admit that her memory was fuzzy. She hoped it was clearer for her past self.

“There! It’s that circuit there!”

It wasn’t her past self that had spoken, but the human on her other side, -well she was dressed like a human anyway, other than that it was hard to tell. So many species- including her own- had that apprentice.

“Are you sure?!” her past self asked.

“Yes! Inside it looks almost the same as the one I studied!”

The human(?) reached in and detached all the wires from the circuit.

“There, now you should be able to travel without any of the commands feeding through to mainframe!” she shouted.

“Thank you!” her past self told the human.

Romana nodded in agreement. “Yes, thank you,” she said.

They all got up, and Romana waved at the lady with the crazy curls. Other than herself and her other self, she seemed to be the most experienced one here.

“It’s done!” she shouted to her. It was still difficult to hear anyything over all the other people shouting, but she was glad to note it had quieted a little since they first got here.

Crazy curls and some of the other strangers gathered around her and her past self.

“We have to fly each version of the TARDIS out of their shared space and time. But with it being in a fully manual mode, there will be no chance of her correcting coordinates or flicking levers you missed, you have to get every singe thing 100% right and you’re on your own.” her past self yelled.

“Not entirely,” said the probably time lord who had the strong telepathic bond with the TARDIS. “It’s true all your actions have to be right, but the TARDIS consciousness is still in this room, even if it’s confused and in pain, it can nudge your instincts in the right direction if you let it.”

Romana was not good at using her instincts, she had got better at them this regeneration, but she was still a ‘clear and precise instructions, with no room for error’ kind of gal. Unfortunately it seemed that was not an option here, particularly with the unfamiliar desktop.

She pushed down her worries, knowing they would only hinder her.

“Who can fly a TARDIS?!” she asked of the gathered group.

There was a chorus of ‘me’ from her past self, curly hair and a bald egg like man, an ‘I’m still training but sort of,’ from telepathic bond time lord, and ‘I have a passing knowledge’ from another young strange girl, with fluffy brown hair. But all five followed their answer up with ‘but I don’t know this desktop.’

Romana tried her best not to feel too pessimistic at that. “Ok, I go first. Watch what I do. I’m going to try and land my TARDIS in the TARDIS, because if we go anywhere else we wouldn’t be able to get back here to move any more than one version each. If I’m successful, then you take turns and copy what I did exactly, but move the coordinates ever so slightly. Romana goes after me, then curly hair, then bald head man, then the trainee, then passing knowledge. That way the less experienced get more of a chance to observe.”

“And if you’re not successful?” passing knowledge girl asked.

“If my TARDIS doesn’t land in here and I end up lost in the vortex or in time, then you have the same order, but but do something different until one of you is successful!” she shouted.

Telepathic bond girl and egg head looked terrified, but they and all the strangers nodded. However Romana got the impression that her past self was about to insist that she should go first instead, which she didn’t want to deal with right now, so she jumped into action before she could get the chance.

She faced the console and set the coordinates, pressed buttons and flicked switches. She used all the knowledge she had to inform her actions, and make logical guesses. She then told herself firmly not to second guess herself and pulled the dematerialisation lever.

As the familiar wheezing started, the crowds of strangers faded away, and the colour washed from the walls leaving just white.

Romana smiled at the familiar colour.

“Hello old girl, feeling better?” she said, incredibly relieved to be finally able to lower her voice.

The TARDIS hummed in response.

“Good, now I’ve got to go and make sure my past self is successfully freeing your past and future selves.”

She flicked the switch that opened the doors, and rushed out.

Her senses were suddenly once again assaulted by fifty scared people stuffed into small confinement together. The people near where she had parked her TARDIS were staring at her with gobsmacked expressions.

“Who are you? What is going on?” a man in a blue suit yelled at her.

“Oi, That’s the TARDIS! Where is the Doctor?!” a blonde girl shouted.

“Romanadvoratrelundar. Nothing good. Around,” she yelled back and tried to shove her way towards the centre, but it was hard work.

Then she was stopped short when she found knife pointed at her chest. Her eyes followed the blade upwards and found a girl with reddish brown hair and dressed in a somewhat revealing outfit to be holding it.

Romana slowly raised her hands above her head. “Why are you pointing that at me?” she asked.

“Where is the Doctor?” knife girl asked.

Just then she heard the wheezing, and saw another TARDIS materialise next to hers. The doors opened and her past self stepped out.

“Ah, perfect landing!” she exclaimed. She then looked around and followed everyone’s gazes to Romana and the knife wielding girl. “Oh,” she said.

Her past self shoved Romana back and inserted herself between her and the knife, which Romana found both funny and annoying, as it would probably be worse for her if her past self got stabbed to regeneration before her time than her if present self did.

“Leela!” a girl with dark hair and space buns called out. The new stranger came to stand next to the knife wielder and gently pushed her arm down. “I said don’t threaten people. Nobody here knows what’s going on. We’re all in this together,” she shouted, but not in an angry way, just in a ‘I’m in a room full of screaming people and have to make myself heard’ way.

“But they just arrived here, and in the Doctor’s ship,” Leela yelled back.

Space buns frowned. “I’m sure they have a very good explanation,” she shouted, and gave them a look.

“We do, but it’s rather complicated and technical, but the important thing is we’re trying to get the ship under control and we need to do it quickly before someone gets seriously hurt!” Romana shouted.

As if to hammer home her point, the TARDIS gave a particularly violent shudder, knocking half the people in the room to the ground.

Romana managed to catch herself, only to be hit by her past self falling backwards and ending with them both sprawled on the floor.

“Ok, I’m persuaded!” space buns said as they all righted themselves.

Leela shielded her knife, whether because she had decided to trust them, or because she realised how dangerous it was for her to be holding a sharp object in such an unstable place, Romana didn’t know.

“Right, everything seems to be ok here. Please fix the TARDIS quickly you two. I’m going to go check on the angry girl with the probably explosives!” space buns shouted.

“The _WHAT_?!” someone shouted after her, but she’d already been swallowed by the crowds.

She then heard the sound of another TARDIS landing next to the first two, and out from it’s doors the curly haired lady appeared.

“You two haven’t got far,” she yelled.

“There was a bit of a hold up!” Romana shouted back.

She turned around and saw that her past self was trying to shove her way through the crowds towards the central console. Curly hair joined her in her efforts but it looked like slow progress.

“Leela,” she shouted, tapping the girl on shoulder. She looked at Romana with suspicion. “Can you- don’t hurt anyone or use weapons- but can you clear a path from the TARDISes to the centre?! And keep it clear?!”

Leela considered her for a moment, then nodded determinedly, and leapt into the crowd. She parted them with much more ease than herself (both of them), and curly hair, probably because of her general intimidating appearance and demeanour.

“And the same for all of you that have been listening in! Clear the way, and tell other people to help!” Romana shouted.

All the people in her immediate vicinity startled at being called out, then after a moment’s hesitation they started with their new assignment.

Romana strode confidently behind them, tapping on random peoples shoulders, pointing to the three TARDISes and the console, and telling them to clear the way to help them quickly get the ship stabilised.

They all would gape at her for a minute, but she could see it in their eyes that they were desperate for something to do, instead of just being confused and panicking, so without fail they all quickly decided to trust the random stranger telling them what to do.

With the new manpower, a path from the TARDISes to the console formed quickly and as people became aware that something was happening, Romana felt many eyes watching her with interest.

She arrived at the console just as the young probably time lord dematerialised.

She watched what ‘passing knowledge’ did with eagle eyes, whilst also mentality calculating the coordinates for her next flight.

After that, it all went fairly smoothly. They each did the flight one more time and once passing knowledge had docked her second ship, a stillness fell over the room, taking Romana quite by surprise after so long of constant turbulence.

For a moment everybody waited with baited breath to see if would suddenly spiral out of control again. When it became clear that that wasn’t going happen, several people started cheering. It quickly caught on and soon the entire room was cheering for them.

Romana knew it they weren’t out of the woods yet. She just knew trying to organise all these people was going to give her a major headache and they still had no idea how they had all _got here,_ but they had solved one problem, and for that she allowed herself to breath a sigh of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kind eyed girl, and the space buns girl who fell on Amy were Sarah Jane and Yaz.
> 
> The girl who was crouching over 11 when Amy found him was Clara.
> 
> The girl who with a telepathic bond with the TARDIS was Susan. (so I may have taken a few liberties giving her that ability)
> 
> The girl who could see code in the manual interface was Zoe.
> 
> The human who helped set the TARDIS into manual mode was Liz.
> 
> The bald man and the fluffy haired girl who could fly the TARDIS were Nardole and Nyssa.
> 
> The man in the blue suit and the blonde girl who asked Romana II questions when she got out of the TARDIS were Harry and Rose.
> 
> The woman with the knife was Leela.
> 
> The space buns girl who talked Leela down was Yaz.


	2. TWO

Martha Jones had no idea what was going on, she had had no idea what was going on since she out of no where found herself not in the TARDIS as she had been seconds prior, but in this room that was _almost_ the TARDIS but not quite, surrounded by about fifty strangers.

She wanted to investigate and find the Doctor, however almost as soon as she’d arrived here, she had come across an unconscious man, and despite her confusion, she knew she had to help him.

With maybe-the-TARDIS shaking so violently, and all the people running and falling about, helping him really just consisted of crouching over him and trying to keep him from being trampled, but as the shaking stopped and the crowds around her erupted into applause, Martha could finally properly examine the unconscious man. He was middle aged with dark hair and wore shaggy clothes. She couldn’t find any obvious injuries, however a knock to the head- which she believed to be the most likely cause for his state- wouldn’t necessarily be visible so soon.

She felt his pulse. It was thankful steady. But... was that two pulses she felt? Like the Doctor? Surely that wasn’t possible.

Before she could consider what this meant, she felt a tap of her shoulder. She swung her head round quickly, surprised.

She saw an unfamiliar lady with huge blonde curls in a leather jacket.

“Get him into the TARDIS closest to the doors!” the lady said, pointing. Martha blinked. “We’re going to put all of them in there where it’s safer. Grab someone to help you if you can’t lift him.”

And then she was off. Martha stared after her in confusion and shock for a second, but she shoved it aside for the sake off her patient and so she grabbed the sleeve of the closest stranger.

“Oi! What do you want?!” the lady shouted, looking angry, but she softened when she saw the unconscious man and knelt next to Martha.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how I got here or what’s going on or where my friends are and I guess I’m a bit on edge.” She was pale with very short brown hair, wore a somewhat retro outfit and had an Australian accent.

“I don’t blame you. The same thing happened to me.” Martha told her. The crowds had stopped cheering, but though they weren’t as quite loud as they had been before they room stabilised, they were now back to shouting so Martha and the girl had to raise their voices to be heard.

“At least I’m not the only one. How can I help?!” the lady yelled.

“I need you to help me carry him in to a TARDIS near the doors, because a strange lady told me to and I don’t see what other choice I’ve got but to trust her!”

“Alright then,” the lady said. She stood up and took the man by the ankles. Martha took his shoulders and together they shuffled and shoved their way towards where the strange lady had directed.

“I’m Tegan by the way!” the lady shouted through fatigued breaths.

“Nice to meet you Tegan, I’m Martha!” Martha returned.

“Sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances!” Tegan yelled.

They actually managed to reach the TARDIS very quickly. When people notice you are carrying an unconscious person they move out of the way- or at least as much as they can with such limited space.

Martha had heard lots of TARDIS sounds when she was sitting on the floor with the man, but she was not prepared for the sight of at least ten TARDISes lined up around the edge of the room.

“Quite a strange sight, right?!” Tegan shouted.

Martha nodded. “Come on, the one closest to the doorway!” she yelled.

They shuffled towards said TARDIS, and through the luckily open door. Martha went in backwards, so the first thing she noticed was how thankfully quite this TARDIS was compared to the room outside. A few hushed voices here and there, but other than that silence. The second thing she noticed, as she bent her head around to get a look of where she was going, was how white it was. The only colour in the room was a pale teal on the console.

Curly hair was there, as well as quite a few strangers sitting or standing around many unconscious people. “Hello. Could you move out of the door and put him down with the rest?” curly hair said.

Once they had done as she said, Tegan straightened up and faced the curly haired woman.

“Who are you?!” she asked.

The lady crouched over the man they had brought in and checked his vitals. “Professor River Song,” she said without looking up.

“Is that your _real_ name?” Martha asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Professor Song said. Finally looking up to meet Martha’s gaze, then turned her head to meet Tegan’s.

“Do you know how we got here?” Martha asked.

“No,” Professor Song told them, deflating slightly. “I have no idea.”

Martha nodded and turned her gaze to Tegan, but the girl was scanning the room and the people in it. Suddenly her eyes opened wide and she let out a gasp. “Doctor!” she called, and ran to an unconscious man at the back of the white room.

He was definitely not Martha’s Doctor, with blonde hair and wearing what looked like an old fashioned cricket outfit. Of course there was a possibility that he was a completely different doctor, but with what her Doctor had told her about regeneration, she had to wonder if this was a different version of the man she knew, and that intrigued her greatly.

Just then she heard a small commotion behind her and turned to see a man and a woman carrying her own pinstriped Doctor between them.

Martha with some difficulty resisted the urge to run straight too him, and instead waited for the carriers to put him down before kneeling down and checking him over. He was alive at least, and she couldn’t see any obvious injuries.

She was vaguely aware of the people who had brought her Doctor in both shouting ‘Doctor!’ almost simultaneously, and then running in opposite directions and kneeling over two completely different men. But at the moment she was rather preoccupied with the Doctor she knew.

“Doctor,” Martha whispered anxiously, “wake up.”

Three more men were brought in one by one, and Martha reluctantly left the Doctor to check them over. The man who had brought her doctor in, and Professor Song did the same thing. All of them seemed the same, not obviously harmed, but decidedly not conscious.

No more than six minutes after she had first entered this white TARDIS, a red haired lady (who was for some reason covered in pink slime) and a man dragged in a fourth man. A curly haired blonde man in a garish coat.

“I think this is the last one,” the red haired lady said. “Also this is Rory. He is a nurse. So he might be able to help.” She motioned her head at the man helping her carry the guy in the coat.

“Yeah, and your hus-“ Rory started as he and the lady carefully put down the man.

“Oh and Rory, this is River Song, she’s a friend of the Doctor’s, but from his future!” the red girl interrupted with grin like it was a terribly interesting and juicy story. Martha supposed that under other circumstances she might agree, but right now it was low on her list of priorities.

Rory however developed an expression of shock and confusion and glanced at River and back at the red haired girl nervously. “Of course she’s River. Why would I not recognise our- why would I not recognise River?”

“ _What?!_ ” Amy exclaimed, looking back and forth between him and River. “You two know each other?! Explain _now_!”

River quickly dashed over and inserted herself between them. “Ok. Amy clearly you’re from a point in time where it would be unlikely for Rory to have met me yet, but Rory, clearly you have met me, so...” she trailed off and gave them a raised eyebrow.

“So we’re from different times! Rory! You’re from the future!” Amy said, shocked.

“And you’re from the paaaaast,” Rory said in a mock excited voice, that implied he was less than happy with this turn of events.

“Umm, excuse me?” a girl with huge red curls and the most adorable high pitched voice said. “As interesting as this is to watch unfold, and really it is interesting, I think-“

“What I think Mel’s tryna say-” a girl in a leather bomber jacket sitting next to red curls interrupted- “is the Professor cloud be dying! And we should be helping him instead of having silly chats about who knows who!”

Martha wasn’t sure to what ‘Professor’ the girl was referring, as Professor Song seemed right as rain, and the girl wasn’t the most diplomatic, but she found herself nodding along because right now they _should_ be focusing on the patients.

“Well something like that,” Mel said, then frowned, “wait, how do you know my name? Oh never mind, it can wait until later.”

“You’re right. Of course you’re right,” River said. She looked round at all the people in the now somewhat crowded room. There was about twenty conscious people here now.

“I’m sorry, but I’m first I’m going to have ask that everyone who is not medically trained or has knowledge of time lord biology to leave.”

As a (almost) doctor, Martha had to agree. It was too crowded in here. But there was an immediate chorus of disapproval from the gathered people, who all seemed to have found someone within the unconscious that they cared about and didn’t want to leave.

“Who made you in charge?! Do you even have any of those skills yourself?!” leather bomber jacket girl yelled.

“I made myself in charge because someone has to be, and yes, I have knowledge of time lord biology.”

“Oh, are you a time lord?” Tegan asked. But she didn’t sound sarcastic, she said it like it was a genuine question.

“She can’t be. The Doctor is the only one left,” Martha told her. She was surprised that someone would understand what a time lord was but not that vital fact.

“Don’t be daft, I saw lots of time lords on Gallifrey when the Doctor was on trial,” Mel said.

That didn’t make any sense and there was a lot to unpack there, but Martha knew that any questions would lead to tangents that they couldn’t afford time for.

“Well I have no idea what a ‘time lord’ is, and I’m a school teacher, so I’m willing to leave the Doctor here as I can see I don’t have any useful skills in this circumstance,” a brown haired man said. He gave the unconscious old man he’d been sitting next to a pat on the shoulder, then got up and left the white TARDIS with lady who had been sitting next to him.

After that people slowly started getting up and leaving, (some with a bit of extra persuading), until finally it was just Amy, Martha, River, Rory and the man who’d carried her Doctor in. Martha didn’t think Amy was a medical professional or knowledgeable on time lords, and yet River didn’t show any sign of caring, so Martha wondered if there may be some favouritism going on.

Martha didn’t think it was worth arguing about one extra person, so she focused on the patients.

Twelve men, one woman. All white. Mostly middle aged, some older, a few younger.

“Well just us now,” the man who’s name she didn’t know said. “I’m Harry Sullivan, navy surgeon in the employ of UNIT”

“Martha Jones. Training to be a doctor.”

Harry looked surprised at that but wiped the expression off his face quickly.

“Rory Williams. Nurse. And this is my- my Amy, and River Song,” Rory finished the formal introductions. “Do you think they all fell over and hit their head when the ship was shaking?”

“No Rory, I don’t think it’s that simple,” River said.

Martha turned to River, a suspicion on her mind that had been growing there for awhile. “Are they all the Doctor?” she asked.

River glanced at her and looked almost impressed. “The men definitely are. I don’t know about the woman but it seems quite likely she is as well.”

“Oh my god, really? _All_ these people are the Doctor?” Amy asked, openly gawking at the Doctor’s other selves.

Harry didn’t seem too surprised. “I have only met one Doctor myself, but I’ve heard stories from other people at UNIT about him having different faces.”

Martha herself wasn’t sure what to think. She had known for awhile that the Doctor _could_ change faces, but it was weird to actually see those other faces and have to think ‘Doctor’.

River had crouched down next to the woman and for some reason was ruffling through the pockets of her pale blue coat.

“Ah,” River said, pulling out a silver thing. She pressed a button and it emitted a familiar buzzing.

“A sonic screwdriver,” Martha realised.

“Yes,” River confirmed. “Definitely a future regeneration of the Doctor.”

“Oh my god,” said Amy.

“So if every unconscious person is a version of the Doctor, is probably unlikely that they, _and only they_ , all hit their head, right?” Martha asked despite already knowing the answer.

“Precisely,” River said.

“Could having so many of one’s self together at once have some kind of effect on them?” Harry said.

“I suppose their personal timeline is being put through the blender a bit right now, but it’s not like paradoxes are new to them and don’t think they’re ever reacted like this to one before.”

“Umm, guys?” Rory said. “You might want to see this.

Martha turned her head to look at him. He was crouched next to a young man in a tweed jacket- _next to a version of the Doctor_ she reminded herself. Martha couldn’t see anything noteworthy, but Amy, who had come next to Rory, gasped loudly, dropped to her knees and stoked the Doctors face worriedly.

Martha and the other two jumped up and rushed over to see what was the matter. Once she got a good look at the young Doctors face Martha understood Amy’s reaction.

“Sweet Lord...” Harry whispered.

A patch of skin on the Doctor’s right cheek had faded so you could see right through it. The patch was small at least, but as she looked closely at it she could see it was slowly expanding.

“What does this mean?!” Martha exclaimed, upset. The Doctor was disappearing in front of her eyes and she had no clue why. If only he wasn’t unconscious he’d tell her what was going on, but instead she was on her own with all these strangers she didn’t really know if she should even trust.

River raised the screwdriver she had taken and scanned him. She then hopped over a few unconscious Doctors to get to the console, plugged the sonic in and started pressing buttons.

Harry meanwhile had moved over to the Doctor in the outrageous coat, who was laying near the tweed one.

“Oh no,” Harry exclaimed.

“What?” Martha asked. She wondered what more could go wrong.

Harry lifted up the Doctor’s arm to reveal that most of his hand had disappeared. “It’s not just contained to the young one,” he said solemnly.

Martha got up and rushed over to _her_ Doctor, and sure enough, there was a patch of near his ear where he had begun to fade away.

“These readings aren’t possible!” River said.

“What do you mean?” Martha yelled.

“It’s like there’s barely anything there.”

“You mean the Doctor is ceasing to exist? That’s why they’re fading?” Martha figured that made as much sense as anything.

“Yes- No. I mean everything is fading, not just the Doc-“

Suddenly a young girl with short dark hair ran in looking very distressed. “OH COME QUICKLY THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE TARDIS!” she screamed.

River ran over to her and put her hands on her shoulders. “Calm down and explain slowly,” she told her.

The girl took a deep breath. “We couldn’t get control of the primary TARDIS- the other one that is, we’re calling it the primary- she is flying herself, and it is like the vortex is closing in around us, so- so the time lords told me to get you, because we have to do something!” she said. Her lip quivered a little, but for the most she kept her cool this time.

River turned to Martha and the others. “I need to go, you do what you can for them.”

“Like _what_ exactly?!” Rory exclaimed frustratedly.

River raised her arms in a dramatic shrug. “I don’t know! Talk to them! Maybe you can persuade them to fight time itself! Knowing them like I do I wouldn’t be that surprised!” And with that she turned and ran after the young girl out of the TARDIS.

There was a long purse in which no one said anything. Eventually Martha looked down at her unconscious doctor and with an awkward small whispered, “Hay, you there Doctor?...”

***

It seemed quite a lot of the crowd had decided to go explore the other TARDISes, or maybe the other parts of this TARDIS, whatever the case there was only around ten people in the TARDIS Prime console room now, and Susan was very grateful for that fact as she led the curly haired lady back up to the control panel.

White time lord and red time lord (she was fairly certain they were time lords anyway), were anxiously running around the control panel trying to figure out was wrong. Bald man, fluffy hair, and the two ladies who had helped earlier but couldn’t actually fly the TARDIS were standing a little off to the side looking out of their depth. Susan could relate, she now wished she’d made her grandfather teach her faster, but she’d been so enamoured with living in foreign places, and especially Earth 1963, that it hadn’t seemed important. She supposes she never had imagined a situation where her grandfather wouldn’t be able to fly it, so she hadn’t seen why it mattered if she couldn’t? Well clearly she had been wrong. If she had learnt more maybe the most useful thing she could do for these time lords would be more than fetching a stranger from another room.

“The good news is I think I know why your time vortex seems to be shrinking,” River said and placed her arms on the console.

“Why?!” the red and whole time lords yelled in unison.

“That’s the bad news. I think time is ending.”

“WHAT?!” everyone screamed.

Susan looked around anxiously hoping somebody would say that wasn’t possible. If time ended, that meant that everything ended. There would be nothing, have never been anything but nothing, and never _would be_ anything but nothing.

“Why do you think that?” the red time lord said, looking pale.

“The Doctor- the _Doctors_. They’re fading, _literally._ So I scanned them and there was only the faintest signal of them existing, and it was getting fainter! But I hadn’t re-scanned, it was just one reading, it was like the reading I had taken in the past was changing in front of my eyes. And it wasn’t just the Doctor, it was the TARDIS too, everything around me was ceasing to exist.”

Everyone stared at her in dismay for a moment.

“But if it’s everything, why are we not fading?” white time lord said finally.

Susan watched as River frowned, that seemingly hadn’t occurred to her. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Maybe it’s just the Doctor and the TARDIS, not time itself that’s fading,” one of the humans(?) off to the side suggested. She had strawberry blonde hair and wore a smart outfit.

“Then why is the time vortex shrinking?!” the white time lord said, her voice raised in frustration.

The probably human strode up to the console. “The time vortex is basically time itself right? So imagine something was erasing the Doctor from time, not changing his timeline, but removing him from every single second of the universe.”

The lady pursed and looked around to check everyone was fallowing. Susan nodded to show that she was, though she couldn’t imagine what could do such a thing, or why anyone would want to.

The lady continued, “So as the Doctor and the TARDIS cease to exist, the time vortex being time itself, appears to disappear. We can’t go then or see then, _because we don’t exist then_ , and _never have_ and _never will_ exist then.” She looked round intently at the group after explaining her dire theory.

“And the TARDIS is trying to fly us away from the tsunami which is the end of our existence, at least this version of us, but soon there will be no where left, and then...” the white time lord said with a lost expression on her face.

“She’s buying us time.” curly hair snapped. “So how do we stop this?”

Everyone was silent, which Susan understood. What was there that they possibly could do? If they were about to be erased from every single moment in time, that was it. There was no where else to go… _Right_?

“What if... what if we went _outside of time_?” she said hesitantly, staring intently at the floor.

“What do you mean?” curly hair asked.

“Well, you see, we have twelve TARDISes inside one TARDIS, which is in the vortex and about to be erased from time, but what if instead we had thirteen TARDISes all inside each other, none of them in the vortex, or any kind of real time, making what would be for all intents and purposes, their own pocket universe.”

Having finished, she glanced back up to gauge reactions. Curly hair and the two time lords looked at her for a second, then all three simultaneously jumped into action, running around the control panel, flicking switches and moving levers.

The wheezing sound of materialisation filled the room, and within moments they had landed with a small shudder.

***

River wasted no time in dashing towards the doors the moment the ship materialised, but she stopped once she reached them and took a deep breath. She grabbed the handle, slowly pulled one open and stuck her head out.

They had landed in the same TARDIS they had put all the Doctors in. Amy was staring at her with her mouth wide open, and Rory, Martha and Harry looked rather shocked too.

She was prevented from giving any explanation by a series of groans coming from the floor. She looked down and saw the Doctors shifting and looking around groggily, seemingly not able to quite take in any of their surroundings.

The TARDIS had landed right next to the twelfth Doctor, the one she had been living with for the past ten years, and he squinted up at her for a few moments before she finally saw recognition in his eyes. “River?” he said, his voice slightly slurred. “What _happened_?”

“Oh sweetie, I still don’t really understand that myself, but now you’re here maybe we can figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black bomber jacket girl is Ace.
> 
> The man and woman who were first to leave the "medical" TARDIS were Ian and Barbara.
> 
> "Red time lord" is Romana II.
> 
> "White time lord" is Romana I.
> 
> The strawberry blonde lady who helped figure out what was going on with the TARDIS was Liz.


	3. THREE

The Doctor tried to make sense of what River had said, but his head still felt fuzzy. The last thing he could remember was... what _was_ it? He concentrated hard. Ah that’s it! He had been in been in the TARDIS liberty, making modifications to his sonic, with River snuggled next to him writing in her diary, but then out of nowhere, the TARDIS had started shaking like anything, and no sooner had they jumped to their feet than everything... went black.

But now he was somehow outside of the TARDIS and lying on the ground looking up at his wife. He frowned. There was something else wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

As he was trying to work it out, another head popped out of the TARDIS next to River, which was wrong, there shouldn’t be anyone else in the TARDIS, apart from maybe Nardole or possibly even Ramone, but this head definitely wasn’t Nardole or Ramone. He squinted at the head until it came into focus, and then recoiled backwards in surprise.

“ _Romana?_ ” he gasped.

How could Romana be here? Romana was in E-space, literally an entire universe away.

Oh. _Oh_. Now he realised what he had missed before. Behind the TARDIS, were the walls of... _the TARDIS_. They had the unmistakable round things of a default desktop.

There was definitely something very wrong here.

“Doctor,” a voice said from somewhere behind him, and oh, he knew that voice. Just as he knew he should never be able to hear it again.

He slowly turned his head and saw Amy Pond standing a mere ten feet away. She wasn’t talking to him though, or even looking at him, she was crouched in front of… _him_. The past him, the one with the chin.

The Doctor blinked, wondering if he was imagining things, but when he opened his eyes chinny was still there. His past self was staring at Amy like he had seen a ghost, until he suddenly unfroze and pushed her away.

“No! You can’t be here. It’s not possible!” he gasped. He looked up at the ceiling, tears forming in his eyes. “Is this one of those things where mind reading aliens use your thoughts against you, because if it is, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

“Well that would make this whole thing a lot simpler, but unfortunately it does not appear to be the case,” Romana said dryly.

It was an interesting theory, but the Doctor couldn’t see why mind reading aliens would show him his past self, unless of course they wanted to annoy him to submission.

His eleventh self finally turned away from Amy when he heard Romana, his mouth fell open when he saw her, but no sound came out. However “what, WHAT?” came from a different source, and “ROMANA?!” from another still.

The Doctor’s eyes darted in the directions of the voices and were met with first his tenth self, and then his fifth self.

“Romana? What do you mean _Romana?_ That’s not Romana! That’s Princess Astra.” This time the voice came from his fourth self. He was now starting to notice that there were actually rather a _lot_ of his past selves here, and was thinking this looked progressively more like his own personal purgatory.

“Oh will you all SHUT UP! My head is KILLING ME!” He sixth self yelled, disgruntled.

“No I will not shut up! I want to know what is going on here!” The fifth Doctor shouted.

The twelfth Doctor gingerly got to his feet. Several of his past selves did the same.

“Well I doubt you’re going to get any answers by shouting, so why don’t you leave my poor ears out of it?” said the sixth Doctor, who was still lying on his back, with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. What seems to be the matter?” his first self asked. He was sitting on floor, probably blissfully ignorant of how crazy a situation his was in right now.

“Oooooh, difficult question to answer, that. Well maybe not difficult, so much as hard to believe,” a woman he didn’t recognise replied. In fact she was the only person in this room he didn’t recognise. All the other people were Amy, Rory, Harry, Martha, and himselves. That distinction marked her as suspicious in his books.

“My dear girl, I am quite sure I will be able to believe it, provided it is within the realm of reasonable possibility of course,” his first self said.

“Yes, but your problem was you never had any imagination!” his second self said.

“I beg your pardon?! What makes you think such a thing, hmm?”

His second self strode up to his first. “Because,” he said with a grin, “I am you.” He grappled his past self’s hand in an enthusiastic handshake.

His first self looked equal parts taken aback and annoyed. “Oh dear,” he said.

The second Doctor nodded. “Yes, we really shouldn’t be meeting, but it’s hardly our fault if we don’t know how we got here, now is it?”

“So you don’t know either? Well what about all they- these people? Who are they?” the first Doctor asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” the second Doctor answered, still smiling.

The twelfth Doctor groaned and covered his face with his hands. “River, get me out of here, I can’t stand them any longer.”

He felt River pat his back in a way that might have meant to be comforting, but he could tell she was finding way too much humour in this situation.

“Are all these people the Doctor?” he heard someone whisper nearby. “And I thought one was bad.”

Rather offended, he turned round and saw Romana the original standing next to Romana the face stealer in the entrance to the TARDIS. At this point he wasn’t even that surprised.

He strode up to her. “I could say the same to you.”

He meant to be angry, but before all the words had escaped his mouth, he was grinning involuntary.

Romana was standing in front of him! Twice! And Amy and Rory Pond were somewhere behind him. He didn’t know how, and with his luck some evil plot was involved that would have to be dealt with, but that didn’t diminish the fact that three people he never thought he would see again were here, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

Romana the second grinned back at him, though Romana the first just frowned.

“What do you mean ‘you could say the same to me?” she asked.

He raised an eyebrow at Romana II. “You haven’t told her yet?”

“I’ll tell mine if you tell yours,” she said with a shrug.

“What is going on?!” Romana I demanded.

“Yes, I’m rather curious about that myself,” River said.

The Doctor ignored them both and instead responded to Romana II. “I have, if you were paying attention.” He gestured towards his first two selves, who now seemed to be arguing. In fact all of his past selves seemed to be arguing, with the exception of his Eleventh self who was clinging onto Amy with teary eyes

“I meant tell all of them.”

“Well that’s not fair! He’s my second self, you’re your second self. If your twelfth regeneration wants to pop out of the TARDIS, then I’ll talk to them about ‘telling all of them,” he said with a huff.

“Oh Rassilon’s beard! You’re not Princess Astra are you? You- you’re...” Romana I said, her eyes comically wide.

“Nearly there,” Romana II encouraged.

“You’re me!”

“Hi,” Romana II said with grin and a wink.

The Doctor frowned. That wasn’t fair, she didn’t even tell her.

Romana I didn’t look happy though. “So what’s this in aid of? Did you feel bad about the sixth segment being a person, so you decided to take her face as some kind of... tribute?” She said disapprovingly.

Romana II shook her head wildly. “No, no. Astra is fine and human again. I just liked her face.”

Romana I seemed relived at that. “I did think she had a very pretty face,” she said, looking her future self up and down.

“Why thank you,” Romana II said smugly. “Though seeing you now, I am reminded my that previous one was also so very pretty. Makes me miss it.”

“Oh? How can you miss it when it’s literally right in front of you?” Romana I replied with a smirk.

River had started laughing, while the Doctor furrowed his brow trying to follow the sharp turn this conversation had taken.

Thankfully- well at least the Doctor was thankful- the Romanas were interrupted before their ‘conversation’ could progress, by someone shoving them apart while trying to get out of the TARDIS.

“Excuse me, trying to get through here. Could you not stand in the doorway plea- WHOA! Wait, _what_?” The person said as they came out and saw the TARDIS interior. It was the woman he hadn’t recognised. But- but hadn’t she just been behind him in the TARDIS? How had she got into the TARDIS- Errr, the _other_ TARDIS _?_

The woman looked as confused as he felt, with her month open and her nose all scrunched up. She turned around to look at the TARDIS (box) and then back to the TARDIS (room) then repeated the motion a few time before her confused look faded into one of annoyance.

“Ok, who landed the TARDIS inside the TARDIS that the TARDIS was landed in?” she said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot impatiently.

The Doctor blinked incredulously. “Who did _what_?” he asked.

“Ah, that would be us.” River said, raising her hand guiltily.

Her annoyance then seemed to be replaced by a fond ‘I should have known’ look, but then she frowned again. “Who’s ‘us’?” she asked.

“Hay, can you backtrack to the TARDISes in TARDISes thing?” the Doctor said, but he was ignored.

“Me and those two time lords,” River said, nodding at the Romanas.

The Doctor and the woman simultaneously raised their eyebrows in surprise.

“Really?” she said. “I might expect something as reckless from you-“ she gently booped River on the nose, with a softness in her eyes that made the Doctor suddenly realise with great clarity who exactly this woman was. “-but it’s not like you two to do something like that,” she finished, turning to the Romanas.

Both of them crossed their arms defensively. “We didn’t have much of a choice. First the TARDIS was on the verge of a meltdown, and then we were being erased from time,” Romana I explained.

“ _What_?!” the doctor squeaked, feeling slightly faint.

“You wouldn’t want to be erased from time now would you Doctor,” River said with a pout.

“Been there, done that. Not a fan,” his future self said, her face wrinkling in displeasure.

“Besides, it’s not like we were landing the TARDIS in a version of itself that was at the same point in time. Surely it’s not much more dangerous than landing a TARDIS inside a different TARDIS,” Romana II pointed out.

“But what’s this about being erased from time?” the Doctor tried to ask.

“It’s more the making a pocket universe that worries me,” his future self said, seeming to barely notice him. “The time lords thought that was too powerful, so TARDISes were designed to dislike them.”

“Well clearly this TARDIS dislikes being erased from time even more, because she did it with no trouble.” River said.

“Yes! _That_! The erased from time thing! Can we please get back to that and way it necessitated making a pocket universe?” the Doctor asked, seizing on the opportunity to turn the conversation back to what he thought was the most important detail.

His future self finally turned to him and nodded. “Right. Yeah. Sorry. What he said, and also how on earth did everybody end up here together?”

River and the Romanas looked at each other uncertainly. “We probably don’t have as many answers as you would like, but maybe it would be best if we tell _everyone_ at once what we do know, to avoid repeating it,” Romana I said, nodding to all the Doctors in the room behind him.

The Doctor turned around and took in his past selves. They were all- _somehow_ -still arguing. None of them were using the console or had gone to explore through the open doors like he presumed his future self had. It was probably lucky that they hadn’t, but he had to groan at their lack of initiative and skewed priorities.

He turned back to the people he liked and his future self. “If we _have_ to,” he said with a deep frown.

***

In his seven faces worth of life, the Doctor had learnt that things were not always as they first appeared, but he was sure something very sinister was going on here. What else but a force of great darkness could disrupt the natural flow of time so much to bring him and all his past selves together like this?

“I’m telling you, if we’re all here, then there must be something bad out there that wants us out of the way!” he tried to explain to his third and fifth selves.

“Then why not just kill us? Surely they had us at their mercy when they brought us all here, and wouldn’t that be much simpler?” his fifth self asked.

“Don’t underestimates the complexities of evil. Maybe they need us for something, maybe they don’t want to irreparably damage the timeline, maybe they think we know secret ingredient to the galaxy’s best soup! Evil comes in many different forms.”

“Well I think that if this evil’s big plan is to put all of us together with a working TARDIS at our disposal, then it’s not a very good plan,” his third self said.

“Well of course you would underestimate the enemy. You’re practically a _soldier_ ,” he spat.

His third self glared at him anger and disgust at that. “I am the furthest thing from a soldier!”

“Oh really. Them what exactly do you call working for a _military_ organisation?” he asked.

“I don’t condone everything that UNIT does, but the people there have good hearts, and sometimes the best way to improve something is from the inside!”

The Doctor knew his past self was right in some ways. Some of his favourite people in the universe had worked for UNIT but it had never been the right place for him, he shouldn’t have allegiances like that.

“Has anyone considered that this isn’t actually an evil plot?” his fifth self said, interrupting the staring match that had broken out between his other two selves. “Maybe a benevolent power has brought us all together to fix something, like the time lords. They’re done that before.”

“The time lords? _Benevolent_?” the third Doctor questioned.

“I mean relatively,” the fifth Doctor clarified. “Bringing your enemies together doesn’t make sense but if someone wants us to help them, then the more of us there are the more we can achieve.”

Just then a strange man in a pinstriped suit ran through the middle of their group, closely followed by his sixth self who shouted “WHAT DID YOU CALL ME YOU LITTLE TWAT?”

The three Doctors were silent for a moment.

“The time lords may have done such a thing in the past, but I think this time, there are too many of us here to actually achieve anything,” the Doctor said finally.

“Well I am beginning to doubt if you gentlemen are really me at all,” the third Doctor said with a huff.

“Why _on earth_ would we lie about that?” the Doctor asked, frustrated.

“Well you see, you cannot underestimate the complexities of evil, they come in many forms!” he said smugly.

The Doctor frowned at having his own words thrown back at him.

However, before he could offer up a rebuttal, there was a shout from somewhere in the TARDIS. That is, a shout louder than all of the other shouting, more of a scream really.

“Everyone, SHUT UP!”

Everyone fell silent as they turned to look at a grey haired man in a black hoodie standing near the Romanas and the TARDIS that was parked inside this TARDIS.

However the silence only lasted a second before everyone was shouting again, ‘how dare you!’ ‘Who are you to tell me to shut up!’ ‘No you shut up!’ and things of that nature.

“SHUT UP!” the grey haired man shouted again, but this time he got no response from the group apart from possibly making them shout loader.

For his part, the Doctor wasn’t inclined to take orders from a man who looked like a grandfather trying to make it as a rock star, but he was also growing tired of this consent chatter so he sauntered over to the man who was now talking with two blonde ladies.

“No, absolutely not,” the man said.

“But why not?” the women with curly hair asked with a pout.

“It’ll make a bad first impression,” the lady in the blue coat said.

“Oh I don’t know, I think it’ll make a rather great impression for at least first five seconds before the drugs kick in,” the curly haired lady said with a wink.

“You are not snogging all my past selves with hallucinogenic lipstick to calm them down River! It’s a _terrible_ idea,” the man said loudly.

At this point the Doctor decided that these people were not going to be of any help and backed away quickly.

If you want something done, than you should never trust your other selves, or however the saying goes.

He rummaged his pockets, pulling out a bunch of artificial flowers, a souvenir key ring from the planet Callomora X, a string of twenty silk scarves tided together, and handful of loose change form the Roman Empire, until he finally found what he was looking for. A yellow and blue party whistle.

He grinned at it then lifted it to his mouth and blew it several times.

Heads turned in surprise at the silly tooting but before they had a chance to react he took a deep breath and launched into a fast moving speech, only barely pausing between words.

“Hello I’m your new performer, I’m called the Doctor, not the Professor, _the Doctor_ , and don’t let my assistant tell you otherwise, speaking of my assistant, she regrettably couldn’t be here today, no no don’t boo, I know you were looking forward to seeing the full cast but you’ll just have to make do with me. I promise I’ll make it worth your time as I am an expert in science, astrology, the migration circles of sparrows and pop-tarts. As such for my first act I will preform a piece of magic that will make every politician and fed up middle school teacher alike seethe with jealousy because it is a spell of silence, and pay attention because the magic has already begun. First you have to get their attention with a surprise, but act fast because you only get one shot, then confuse them, this will act as a short lasting paralysis which will wear off when they start to catch on, as you are doing right this second, so I must quickly add a new hook! For instance, ‘what is the new hook?’ will do nicely, and now that I’ve got your attention it’s time for my closing act, you all will listen and not argue from now on because someone in this room might has answers, but all you have are questions, questions like for example, _where is my companion?_ ” he emphasised the question with lowered tone and a raised eyebrow, then he took a closing bow.

Most people stared at him in shock, a few of the people he didn’t recognise looked slightly embarrassed, but tinges of worry started to appear on almost everyone’s faces.

Finally the shocked silence was broken by the lady in the blue coat. “Wow, what a trick!” she said, ‘and perfectly tying in with that ending, I present Mrs Song, Miss Lundar and Miss Lundar!” She dramatically scratched her arms out in the direction of the Romanas and the curly haired woman.

All three women gained dear in headlights expressions and frantically shook their heads.

“No, no please don’t introduce us like that sweetie,” said ‘Mrs Song’ or River as the his future self had called her earlier.

“Wait, wait... do you mean to say that really is Romana standing next to Romana?” his fourth self asked, clearly very confused.

“Yes, do try and keep up,” Romana I said. “We’re just going to tell you the facts of what we know, plain and simple, no dramatics.”

‘Thank goodness, someone sensible,” he heard someone mutter nearby.

The Doctor huffed at their lack of flair, but nevertheless settled down to listen.

He listened as they explained how they had inexplicably found themselves in the TARDIS- not particularly enlightening. His ears pricked up when they explained how he and themselves had started to disappear. He rubbed his hands over his face self consciously, just to make sure it was all there. The listeners murmured restlessly when they finally got to how the time vortex had been disappearing and how they had made a pocket universe.

“So what you three ladies are saying, is that we cannot remove any of the TARDIS from the pocket universe, for fear we will cease to exist? I am right?” His first self asked when they had finished their story.

“Yes,” Romana II confirmed.

“So we’re trapped here and have no idea what we’re up against,” an unfamiliar man with a large chin said.

“For now, yes,” Romana II said.

“You said there was a huge number of people when you first arrived, but when I walked through my TARDIS there were only five. Where are the rest of them? I really want to know if my friends are safe,” said the woman in the blue coat- one of his future selves it would seem.

“I think they all went exploring once the TARDISes were stabilised,” Romana I said.

“So they’re just wondering aimlessly around the deeps on the TARDIS?” his fourth self said aghast.

“Wondering around multiple TARDISes, but yes. You needn’t worry though, I’m sure she will look after them,” River Song told him.

“Well she shouldn’t have to! She’s been though quite enough today as it is,” his fourth self said. “Haven’t you old girl,” he added in a softer voice as he lovingly stroked the console.

The seventh Doctor sighed and stood up. “I think we had better go find them,” he announced. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he wanted to be sure Ace was alright and he was curious to see who else had been pulled into this strange anomaly. “Anyone have any carrots? Maybe we can _lure_ them out.”

“NO CARROTS,” his sixth self shouted.

“My apologies,” the Doctor said and tipped his hat, “I forgot it was a saw subject.

“Well I don’t have any carrots, but lucky I’ve got a better idea,” the thin man in the pinstripe suit said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the Doctor's thing when they meet is that they always argue, then Romana's is going to be that she gets on really well with herself.


	4. FOUR

Ian was sitting next to Barbara on the floor of this strange, golden TARDIS, and trying to absorb the days events.

“Do you think we should go and look for them?” Barbara asked.

“And get lost ourselves? No, it’s better we wait here where we can be found if anything happens to the Doctor.”

When they had come into this TARDIS there had been several other people here, but they had all decided to go exploring down the corridors. That had been nearly half an hour ago, he hoped they were alright.

“Just when I thought our lives couldn’t get anymore extraordinary,” Barbara said wistfully.

Ian laughed. “Since meeting the Doctor, I’ve learnt not to expect things,” he said.

“Well good for you!” Barbara said bitterly.

Just then they were interrupted by a man bounding in, in a sudden flurry of movement.

The man was young, well dressed, with floppy hair and a large chin. He ran around the console excitedly, before glancing around and catching sight of Ian and Barbara.

A huge smile spread across his face. “Chestertron! And Miss Wright!” He said, delightedly.

Ian eyed the strange man suspiciously and subtly angled his body to shield Barbara. His valiance was in vain though as she just moved around him as if unaware of what he was trying to do.

“How do you know our names?” she asked.

“Oh really? He knows both of our names does he?” Ian said.

The man ran up to them and grabbed both there hands in both of his, shaking them enthusiastically. “It’s me Miss Wright! Wait, can I call you Barbara? Miss Wright doesn’t seem right anymore. Ha ha! Miss Wright doesn’t seem right, ah...”

Ian pulled the man’s hand away form Barbara. “How about you don’t call her anything until you tell us who you are and how you know us,” he demanded.

The man hadn’t stopped grinning. “It’s me, the Doctor,” he said.

Ian and Barbara stared at him in open mouthed shook.

“That’s impossible!” Ian exclaimed.

“You expect us to believe that?!” Barbara asked.

His smile faltered a little. “Oh... well, yes? You’re Ian and Barbara. Former school teachers at Cole Hill. You followed a strange student home one night because you were worried about her, and then your lives changed forever. You were the first humans to ever step foot in this TARDIS. The first to teach me to love your species so much.”

“Well now I know you’re not the Doctor, he wouldn’t say something so nice,” he said with a snort. However, Barbara didn’t look so sure.

“What’s your favourite period of human history?” she asked, her voice clear and firm.

“The 29th century,” he said.

Barbara frowned.

“Buuuuttt-” the man continued- “back when you knew me it was the French Revaluation because I was a morbid old grump.”

“What does TARDIS stand for?” she asked.

The “Doctor” shook his head eyes wide. “No, no. You’re got to pick a harder one than that! I’ve told loads of people that! I could be anyone if you ask me that. Ask me what a time rotor is, or-“

“Just answer the question please!” Barbara interrupted him.

He sighed. “Time and relative dimensions in space,” he said with an eye roll.

“Ok, finally. What did you tell me when I failed to change the future of the Aztec people?”

“Barbara Wright, I am over 2,000 years old, do you expect me to remember the exact words I said to you hundreds of years ago?” he asked, and moved to stand right in front of her.

Barbara just stared back at him unblinkingly.

After a second a soft smile formed on his face. “I told you that you failed to save a civilisation, but at least you helped one man.”

“Doctor? How can it be you?” Barbara said her eyes searching him.

“Changed my face, changed it ten times actually. You know how it is when you want to start a new chapter in your life, or well, someone knocks you off a radio dish,” he said with a grimace.

“Doctor I don’t understand a word you’re saying, but somehow I know it’s you,” Barbara said.

Ian glanced between them uncertainly. Even if this man knew a lot of facts about the Doctor, he still couldn’t imagine their grumpy old scientist as this young man, but he did trust Barbara’s judgement. She was by no means a gullible woman, so maybe it was true. Surely stranger things have happened.

“I’ll believe you for now, but don’t think I’m taking my eye off you,” he warned.

The Doctor smiled and rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Brilliant,” he said.

Then before Ian knew what was happening he had swept them both up and a tight hug and planted kisses on the top of their heads.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

“If it’s been hundreds of years, then Vicki can’t still be with you. You’re not travelling on your own are you?” Barbara asked.

“No. Yes. I mean... I wasn’t, I’ve had lots of people to travel with, but not now, not anymore,” he said. He voice had turned sad, and small, there was something in his face that Ian recognised as the look of a man who had lost a great deal.

He quickly shook the look off his face. “Speaking of the people I’ve travelled with, you haven’t happened to see anyone in here have you?”

“Yes in fact, there were some other people in here, five I think, but they decided to go ‘exploring’,” Ian told him.

“Not a problem! I suspected as much,” the Doctor said and dashed back to the control panel. He pushed some things and pulled other things- Ian didn’t really understand it- and held up what looked like a microphone head connected to the console by a wire.

“Hello, this is your Doctor speaking. Could all passengers would please make their way back to the control room. I repeat. Could all passengers please make their way back to the control room. In the event that you don’t remember where the control room is, first make a left, or a right. It doesn’t matter because the ship will reshuffle things to get you back, just keep moving, unless of course she doesn’t like you, in which case I suggest you start grovelling.”

***

“So the Silurians, not ringing any bells?” Rory asked.

Amy frowned. “what’s a Silurian?”

They were sitting together on the floor around the edge of the ‘TARDIS prime’ after everyone had been directed in there form the white TARDIS, and most of the Doctors had disappeared off to find everyone else.

“But you remember Venice?” He asked.

Amy nodded.

“And The Dream Lord?”

Amy grimaced at the memory. “Yeah, done that. We where just about to go to some public bath planet, or something.”

“Ohhh, the one with the robotic micro piranha,” Rory said, recalling that particular adventure. “and I suppose that explains the smile.”

“Yeah the one with- wait what?”Amy said, startled.

“Nothing, spoilers,” Rory told her.

Amy eyed him suspiciously. “That’s River Song’s word. How do you know her again?”

Rory fumbled for an answer. “Well, you know. She’s the Doctor’s friend, and we’re the Doctor’s friends. Our paths are bond to cross every now and again.”

“I don’t think River and the Doctor know each other all that well, and wait a minute, you’re the Doctor’s friend? Not jealous about your fiancée running of with him the night before your wedding?” she asked with a humorous twinkle in her eye.

Rory sighed. He loved Amy at every moment of her life, but... but this Amy was at a stage they had moved past, together. A stage when their love had seemed less certain, less concrete, and he didn’t know how to help her move forward when he was not also at that same stage in his lives.

“Now you’re doing it too,” Amy said suddenly.

Rory startled, confused. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like I make you sad but you don’t want me to know,” Amy said, staring at him intently.

Rory looked away, unsure of how to respond.

Before he could say anything though, Amy continued. “I saw it on River’s face, only briefly. At the time I thought I might have imagined it but now I’m sure. And the Doctor, he made no effort to hide how sad he was, but he wouldn’t tell me why.”

“I can’t speak for River or the Doctor, but I’m sad, because you haven’t lived our life yet, not like I have. There’s a lot you don’t know yet,” and a lot of those things won’t be fun to learn, he thought.

“Maybe, but I do know that you are wearing a wedding ring,” Amy said, her eyes glancing down at his hand which Rory pointlessly tried to hide behind his back,

“Well, I’m from our future, why wouldn’t I be?” he asked nervously.

“We’re still together then? In the future?” she asked quietly.

“Why does that always seem to be such a surprise to you?” he wondered out loud.

Amy shook her head. “I just wanted to make sure.”

She shuffled closer, and put her arms around him in a soft hug. Rory was more than happy to hold her.

In the centre of the room, the Doctor smiled seeing her Ponds together, then turned back to her younger self.

“This is all very exciting isn’t it?” she said with a grin.

“As a matter of fact, no! It is very serious!,” the first Doctor told her sternly.

The smile dropped of her face and she frowned in a way that was not at all like a five year old who had just been told off by a teacher.

She cheered up when she saw the first people returning in response to the message she’d played throughout her ship.

“Nardole! Nyssa!?”

She dashed across the room and pulled them both into a hug. “You’re both ok?”

“...Yes? Who are you and why wouldn’t we be ok?” Nyssa said, looking at her with confusion.

Nardole looked at her with annoyance. “It’s you isn’t it sir.”

The Doctor nodded. “I’ve regenerated,” the she told them.

“Oh my gosh, you’re the Doctor? You regenerated again?” Nyssa said with a gasp.

“But why wouldn’t I be ok?” Nardole asked.

The Doctor looked between them uncertainly. “Oh right, different points in time. Got ya. Don’t worry about it. You’re both fine. Fab. Beautiful!”

When she last saw each of them their future had been uncertain, fraught with danger. But they were both survivors, so she was sure they were ok, still their past selves shouldn’t have to worry about it.

They were all distracted from the weird looks Nardole and Nyssa were giving her by her sixth self coming out of a TARDIS dragging Turlough and Jo by the scuff of their collars. “I retrieved these two adventurers. Why do none of you lot ever understand the meaning of ‘wait here’?”

“Nobody told me to wait anyway!” Jo objected.

“Well how could I! I was unconscious, but mark my words I would have said if I hadn’t have been,” he said and crossed his arms.

“Said what Doctor?” someone with a strong America accent asked.

The Doctor and her past selves turned to see their fourth self exiting a TARDIS with Bill, Leela, Yaz and Peri in tow.

“Don’t tell me you were explor-“ her sixth self started to say, but he was cut off by the Doctor shouting Peri’s name and running across the room to rap her arms around her.

“Are you planning to do that for every person who comes in?” her first self questioned in annoyance, but the Doctor ignored him.

“I am so so sorry,” she said into Peri’s shoulder.

“For- for what?” Peri asked.

The Doctor let go of her and move back so she could see her face. “Something that happened a long time ago in your future.”

Peri looked more confused but before she could say anything her sixth self stormed over.

“Stop coddling her!” he said. “You can do what you like with your own companions, but I decided early on in this regeneration, there would be no more coddling companions!”

The Doctor breathed in deeply in frustration and turned around to glare at him.

“Piss off,” she told him.

“Good gracious,” her first self said.

“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” he asked, drawing himself up to his full hight. Despite her small stature the Doctor was not intimated.

“If you think stealing the face of a general makes you intimidating, I’m afraid you spoiled the effect by wearing what I presume was inspired by something you saw in a two year old’s colouring book.”

“HOW DADE YOU!” he yelled.

“QUITE EASILY,” she yelled back.

“Bring it, blondie,” he spat.

“Oh you just watch me,” she spat back, and grabbed him by the necktie and yanked, while he grabbed a tuft of her hair.

Someone coughed loudly and the two froze mid punches, and looked up. It would seem that while the Doctor was otherwise engaged, a few new arrives had slipped her notice.

All of her past selves were standing in front, watching them judgingly. Behind them was a huge crowd of people. As she scanned the familiar faces she felt overwhelmed. So many people she loved. So many people she thought she would never see again. Clara, Adric, Rose and more.

It was all too much, she didn’t know who to run to first. She stepped away from her sixth self and turned around, needing a quite moment to compose herself.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “You alright Doctor?” Yaz asked, concern evident in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks Yaz. I’m good, it’s just a little overwhelming,” she said, putting her hand over Yaz’s and squeezing it.

“I can see that. It’s not like you to get in a fight.”

Well clearly that wasn’t true, the Doctor thought and she remembered how all her past selves had acted when they first woke up.

“Doctor. What is going on?” Yaz asked. She sounded worried.

The Doctor shook herself out of her state. “Going on generally? I have no idea, but right now you’re going to meet all my friends, my fam even,” she said with a grin.

Yaz still looked uncertain, but she gave her a supportive smile that looked only slightly forced.

Unfortunately by the time the two of them turned round the fifty or so people currently in the control room had dissolved into inaudible chatter. Her tenth self was crying and clinging onto Rose, who looked very alarmed and confused. Tegan and Nyssa were smothering Adric who looked annoyed. Peri was hugging her very confused looking fifth self and crying “don’t leave me again!” Many of her past selves were arguing with each other again. Others still were taking calmly with their contemporary travelling companion. The companions who weren’t being cried over or talking with the Doctor had either fallen into conversation with their friends or where making new ones.

The Doctor took Yaz’s hand, not wanting to loose her again, and started traversing the crowd, seeking out her past selves and dragging them into the entranceway of one of the corridors.

“Alright all, we need a plan here. Any ideas?” she asked her past selves. (And Yaz. And Amy. And Jamie. Her eleventh and second selves wouldn’t be parted from them either.)

“And who exactly, are you?” her first self asked.

The Doctor grinned, “I’m the Doctor,” she said dramatically.

“Liar!” her eleventh self snapped. “Who are you really?!”

The Doctors grin faltered. “I’m the Doctor,” she repeated, annoyance slipping into her voice.

“Well I believe her, and surely you can tell who I am,” her twelfth self said with a toothy grin.

“Who are you?” her eleventh self asked him.

Her twelfth self looked very offended. “I’m the Doctor!” he said.

“No you’re not! And I know that because I am the Doctor. The final, you might say,” he told them coldly.

The Doctor snapped her fingers. “Of course! That’s why you won’t believe us. How did I forget about that...” she trailed off, disappointed in herself.

“We are you. A thing happened,” her twelfth self told her eleventh.

“-we got a new circle of regenerations...” the Doctor finished, then frowned, should they really be telling their past selves this? But what choice did they have?

Her eleventh self looked slightly taken aback by that. He glanced between them, unsure what to believe.

“What could possibly do that?” her ninth self asked, clearly mistrusting.

“I don’t have the time to explain it right now!” the Doctor said in exasperation. Nor could she explain it without getting into big spoilers.

“Then why should I trust you? Because frankly, what you’re saying is rather hard to believe!” her eleventh self snapped.

“Clara was there, she’ll tell you,” the Doctor said. Presuming she’d done that yet, that is.

“Who’s Clara?” her eleventh self asked.

"Clara?" her twelfth self simultaneously asked, a curious and far off look in his eyes.

“Umm, never mind,” the Doctor mumbled, making a mental note of where about those two seemed to be in their timeline.

Both Doctors looked at her suspiciously, but the twelfth seem to trust her enough to not question it too much.

“River can confirm it,” her twelfth self said to her eleventh. “She wasn’t there, but she knows this regeneration. Is that enough to convince you?”

Her eleventh self cautiously nodded. “It will be once I ask her.”

“Don’t bother Doctor, I heard her say that he was you while all of you were unconscious,” Amy told him.

Her past self looked at her in surprise. “Well you could have something! Now I feel like an idiot!”

Amy chuckled. “Well how was I to know you put so much faith in River Song’s word? Besides, it was funny to watch you arguing with yourself.”

The Doctor frowned at Amy. She couldn’t have been travelling with him long then, if she didn’t believe he would trust River.

“Ummm, Hello,” her tenth self said, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Now that’s all sorted, there’s something I want to know. Most of the people here are old friends of mine, but are the few that I don’t recognise ones I will meet in the future?” her tenth self asked. “Those two for example,” he added, nodding to Yaz and Amy.

The Doctor nodded. “I haven’t seen a single person I didn’t know,” she said.

Her eleventh self grabbed Amy excitedly and punched her forward. “This is Amy! Wonderful Amy Pond!” he said.

“And this is Yaz! She’s my friend. She’s so great,” the Doctor said pushing her friend forward.

“Yes, Yes. You are very fond of your adoptive human children. We get it,” her first self snapped.

“Children?!” Amy said incredulously.

“Adoptive?!” Yaz said in horror.

The Doctor and her eleventh self shook their heads frantically.

“What I would like to know is, exactly what criteria brought these particular people here? Other than us knowing them.” her third self said. “Having travelled in the TARDIS perhaps?”

“Nope, that can’t be it,” her tenth self said.

“Over the years I’ve brought loads of people for one day hops around the galaxy, can’t even remember all of them, but here it’s just the ones that stayed. The important ones,” her twelfth self finished.

“So people who’ve travelled for a significant amount of time then,” her ninth self said.

The sixth Doctor shook his head. “Can’t be. Liz Shaw is here. She was in this TARDIS when we came out of the other one, I remember noticing because there was barely anyone who didn’t wonder off.”

The Doctor frowned in thought. “And Liz never travelled in the TARDIS,” she concluded.

“So people who are important to us?” her eighth self suggested, nervously looking around at his past and future selves.

It sounded almost too nice be true, but she supposes that on a rare occasion, the universe might decide to be generous.

Just as that moment, she felt a hand tapping her shoulder. “Excuse me, I’m looking for my grandfather,” a voice said from the corridor behind her.

No words in the English language could describe the feeling that washed over the Doctor as she turned round and saw her own grandchild staring up at her, but love and joy came close.

“I remember some of you being unconscious, like he was, is he awake now too?” Susan continued, not seeming to notice how all the Doctors were staring at her,

“Susan! Susan!” her first self called as he pushed his way through to front of the group.

“Oh Grandfather! You’re alright! I’m so glad,” Susan yelled as she flung her arms around him.

“My dear child, I am glad you are alright,” he said.

“Grandfather, I have too tell you, while you were unconscious there was something wrong with the TARDIS, so we had to land it inside it’s past self. I hope we didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, looking worried.

The first Doctor held her close. “Yes, Yes. I heard about that, though I didn’t know you were involved. But fear not my dear, I think you did very well under the circumstances. Yes, very well indeed.”

Susan smiled. “Thank you Grandfather,” she said. Then she frowned again. “But there’s another thing. There are time lords here. Three ladies who seemed to understand the TARDIS really well. Two of them I’m sure were time lords, the third was less clear. Grandfather, what might they want? What if they try to take the TARDIS back? Or try to take me away from you?! I didn’t know what to do without you there, so I hid as soon as the TARDISes were safe.”

“Oh no no! Don’t worry about that, they were just the Romanas, they’re my friend,” her fifth self quickly reassured her.

The Doctor nodded. “And the third was River, she’s not a time lord, well not exactly,” she said.

“What do you mean not exactly a time lord?” her third self asked.

Susan looked between them uncertainly. “Grandfather,” she whispered. “Who are all these strange people?”

The first Doctor sighed dejectedly. “Unfortunately, these are my future regenerations,” he told her.

Susan looked from Doctor to Doctor with shock. “What, all of them?” she asked.

“Everyone in this corridor apart from those three,” her eleventh self said, pointing at Amy, Yaz and Jamie who were standing together looking very confused.

Susan’s shock finally faded and she laughed with joy and excitement. “Grandfather!” she yelled and ran at the eighth Doctor, who seemed to panic, but just about managed to catch her when she jumped into his arms.

“Look Grandfather,” she said to the first Doctor. “One day you’ll be strong enough lift me again.”

Her first self huffed with annoyance. “Susan, you are eighty four years old. Don’t you think you are getting a bit old for such things, humm?” he grumbled as Susan let go of his eighth self and ran at his fifth self, who grabbed her and span her around,

“I’m sorry, the lass is how old?” Jamie asked, while Amy and Yaz just sputtered.

The Doctor patted Amy and Yaz on the back. “I know. Oh to be young and full of life, amirite?” she said.

Susan turned to her then. “Grandmother!” she squealed as she ran to her and rapped her arms around her.

The Doctor hugged her back. “Hello, my darling,” she said.

“Wait sorry, you’re a grandmother? Have I got that right?” Yaz asked beside her.

“Yep! Yaz, meet my granddaughter Susan. Susan, these are my friends Yaz, Amy and Jamie,” the Doctor said, smiling uncontrollably.

“No, no. Ye must be mistaken. I’ve never met ye before in me life,” Jamie said. “I don’t understand anything that is going on,” he added, looking round at everyone dejectedly.

The Doctor raised her eyebrows, surprised that he hadn’t picked up who she was from listening to their conversations. “I’m a future regeneration of the Doctor Jamie,” she told him.

“What is a regeneration?” he asked.

Oh, she now understood his confusion. Had she not told him that? It was a long time, she be couldn’t expected to remember such things.

“Yeah, I wanna know that also. Can you just start form the beginning Doctor?” Yaz asked.

She hadn’t told Yaz either? Oops. Maybe it would be more difficult than she had originally imagined to explain the current situation to everyone in the main room...

“The beginning?” she said, glancing uncertainly at Susan. “Well that is a long long time ago...”


	5. FIVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hay... yeah I have no excuse for how long this has taken, apart from that I actually wrote this chapter months ago and have been putting off editing it, but I'm pretty sure that actually makes it worse.
> 
> At least it's a long chapter. 7,000 words... and maybe just about enough plot for 4,000!
> 
> Yeah I'm not sure about some of this. I think it drags on a bit, but whatever, it's not all bad and it's an update. I haven't abandoned this! Yay!

‘The Doctor had undoubtedly given them a very abridged version of things’ Yaz thought to herself as they walked back into the control room. But she _had_ found out _some_ stuff. Firstly that the Doctor had had multiple children and grandchildren on her home planet, almost all of whom ‘weren’t around any more’ but she had taken one of her grandchildren with her when she first started travelling through space and time. Secondly, she explained that her species sometimes changed their appearance and personality, but they were somehow ‘still the same old person’. (Yaz had been aware of that to some extent as in that she knew that the knew the Doctor used to be a man, but she hadn’t imagined the changes to be quite as... extreme.) Thirdly, all these people in the TARDIS are her closest of friends, whom apparently are all wonderful and she loves very much and cannot wait for Yaz to meet. That is, as soon as she can get everyone’s attention and explain what’s going on, (as much as they know anyway.)

Putting their heads to that very task, the Doctors had decided that explaining the concept of regeneration and that they were _all_ the Doctor was the first priority if they were going to get anywhere. That was apparently easier said than done as a ‘companion’ would likely only trust the word of the Doctor they knew, but the Doctor they knew might not have met them yet, and thus not know that they were the Doctor they knew? Or something like that? Yaz couldn’t say she entirely understood. However she gathered that the plan was to organise the crowds and explain to them the situation, which she was delighted about as it was familiar to her as a police officer.

Although this was one big and opinionated crowd...

“Excuse me,” she called again. The Doctors were shouting similar things with varying degrees of politeness.

“Excuse me!” she shouted. “Can everyone please listen!” she yelled frustrated.

It was useless. No one could hear her, nobody cared about her even if they did. She was just another person shouting at them. Right now no one understood what was going on and all the different people telling them to listen was overwhelming.

At least she had noticed Ryan and Graham in the crowd, so she knew they were OK. Unfortunately they seemed to be as inattentive as everyone else.

“EVERYONE SHUT IT!” someone shouted louder than everyone else, and Yaz jumped slightly at the volume.

Everyone looked around for the source of the shout and found a lady with red hair and mid ‘00s dress sense.

Before she lost their attention, the lady ran over to the Doctor with the pinstripes and pulled something out of his pocket.

“This-” she declared- “is the talking sonic. Only the person holding it is allowed to talk.”

“Nononooo, Donna. You can’t-” the Doctor stared to say, but Donna slammed her hand over his mouth.

“Uh-uh. Are you holding the talking sonic right now?” She asked. The Doctor slowly shook his head. “Then keep quiet,” she told him.

The Doctor looked very annoyed, but he didn’t say anything else.

Donna scanned the crowd. “Does _anyone_ , have _any_ idea what’s going on?” she asked.

Most of the Doctors and a few other people put their hands up. The pinstriped Doctor looked at Donna expectantly.

“Oh alright spaceman,” she said and handed the sonic over.

The Doctor started talking the moment his hands touched it. “Donna you can’t use my sonic as a talking stick! It is a very valuable piece of-”

Donna gabbed at the sonic and tried to pull it away from him. “That is not what I asked. You’ve got to answer properly!” she yelled.

The Doctor didn’t let go of the sonic though. “Fine!” he said, still trying to pull it away from Donna. “But don’t use my sonic! Use _anything_ else.”

Yaz rubbed her hand over her face. This wasn’t off to a good start.

“You could use my sonic if you like!” her Doctor called. “I don’t mind, but be careful with it, I made it myself,” she told them proudly as she fished in her pockets, then she frowned, and searched more frantically, “no no nnooo, where is it? Someone’s stolen my sonic!”

“Ah, that would be me,” said the curly haired woman who had helped steady the TARDIS, and she held up the offending device.

“How- when- ...River Song, did you go through my pockets while I was unconscious?” the Doctor asked sounding more mock annoyed than angry. Nonetheless, Yaz was angry on the Doctor’s behalf. That was her property! How dare this woman take it when the Doctor was helpless.

“Well stealing things off ancient bodies _is_ what archaeologist do.”

“Neither of you are holding the talking sonic right now!” Donna shouted, still trying to pry it from the hands of the male Doctor.

“As the identity of the talking sonic has been so called into question, I presumed that it’s power was suspended,” River Song said.

“Well it wasn’t,” Donna said, “but from this moment forward, the sonic Professor Song is holding will be the talking sonic and the Professor is invited to explain what’s going on herself.”

“Oh really? How exciting!” River said gleefully.

The Doctor leaned in and whispered something in her ear. River nodded.

“Alright, first things first. The Doctors want you all to know that there are thirteen of them,” River said. A murmur of shock and confusion washed over the crowd. “They all look different and act different, but let me assure you they are all the Doctor, just from different points in their timeline. If you don’t believe me, after I’m done speaking, quietly approach your Doctor and they will confirm it.”

Yaz’s Doctor nodded enthusiastically and gave everyone a little wave, then whispered something else to River’s.

“Secondly, everyone here is a friend of the Doctor, so you can all trust each other.”

Since these people had arrived in the TARDIS, Yaz had had to talk down one lady running around with a knife, and one with explosives. As a result, she was no longer sure if ‘friend of the Doctor’ was synonymous with ‘trustworthy’ but she supposed she should withhold judgement until she’d interacted with them in less stress inducing environments.

After looking round to check everyone had digested those first bits of information, River continued speaking. “The last thing you need to know is that we are, for the time being- trapped in the TARDIS,” she said calmly.

Yaz’s jaw dropped open, and several cries of worry and anger came from the crowd.

Her Doctor stepped up and took her sonic from River, who handed it over happily.

“There’s no need to worry though, you are all perfectly safe in here,” she assured them. “It’s just you can’t leave ‘cause you’ll probably get your timelines rewritten or worse, so until we can figure out why and put a stop to it, we have to stay here.”

Yaz and everyone else listening looked around at each other in concern.

“But it should be fine!” the Doctor added. “All my favourite people in one place! and also my past selves...” She momentarily frowned in annoyance but quickly shook it off. “I’m sure it will be great!”

Yaz was not convinced.

Donna took the talking sonic from the Doctor. “So how long it’s it gonna take to fix?” she asked.

The Doctor raised her eyebrows. “Fix wha-“ she started but stopped when Donna harshly raised her head to shush her. She passed the talking sonic over and held her hand out, like ‘go ahead’.

Seemingly not offended, the Doctor continued on cheerfully. “Fix what?” she asked and happy handed the sonic back over.

“The TARDIS!” Donna said, continuing to pass the sonic back and forth as they talked.

“The TARDIS isn’t broken! She’s perfectly fine! Great even. It’s everything outside of it that’s broken,” she said defensively.

“Felt pretty broken when it was throwing us about earlier, and what do you mean everything else is broken? How can _everything else_ be broken?” Donna asked.

“That’s the thing, we don’t know,” the pinstripe suit Doctor said.

“Taking sonic!” Donna yelled at him.

He sighed and put his hands up in resignation.

A small Doctor in a hat strode past Donna and deftly lifted the sonic from her hands. Donna stared after him in surprise and annoyance. “Imagine a boat in a sea of piranhas,” he said, intently examining the sonic. “You’re perfectly safe in the boat, but if you get out... nothing will be left,” he said, with a tone of great significance which almost disguised the fact that what he was not helpful in the slightest.

Yaz frowned, just feeling more confused.

The blonde Doctor in a cricket outfit stepped up and snatched the sonic off the small man. “What these people to whom I’m sure I have no relation, are failing to explain is that an unknown enemy is trying to wipe me and the TARDIS from all of time and space, and the only place we are safe is in these TARDISes.”

There were several alarmed gasps and worried whispers in response to that.

“So, what then? We all got to crash together for who knows how long?” asked the girl who Yaz had earlier had to talk out of threatening people with explosives.

“Crash together? Who said anything crashing?!” the oldest looking Doctor said looking confused.

“I want my own room,” said the lady in the red coat who Yaz had had to stop that woman Leela from stabbing.

Donna threw her hands up in frustration as more and more people started talking without the sonic.

“Romana, you’re a time lord. You barely ever sleep. You don’t need _any_ bedroom,” the Doctor in a leather jacket said.

“I meant for a lab Doctor, and you’ve never complained about me having a bedroom before.”

“I’m sure the sleeping arrangements are important,” said a pretty girl with fun clothes and an afro. “But I’m more concerned about the toilets. I’m not sharing a bathroom with... _however many people_ are here!”

Yaz shuddered just imagining the queues. “Agreed. I think we will need at least twenty showers and twenty loos,” she estimated.

“Well I’m glad to see everyone’s got over the nearly being wiped from time thing and moved onto the important stuff,” the grey haired Doctor in a hoodie dryly muttered.

Yaz could understand his annoyance, but she knew that if they were going to survive together for however long they would have to work out all this stuff right off the bat, as trivial as it seemed.

She looked around for _her_ Doctor, wanting to discuss the housing logistics with her, but she seemed to have been lost in the crowd. Yaz frowned and reluctantly turned to the other Doctors who were mostly still clustered in a group.

“How many bedrooms are there on the TARDIS?” she asked.

“On _this_ TARDIS?” hoodie Doctor asked, his eyebrows raised. “How many of you are travelling with my future self?”

“Three,” Yaz answered.

“Well then I imagine there are three bedrooms. At least three ones that can reliably be found, but others may appear every now and again when I feel tired or the TARDIS wants to remind me of something.”

“So you’re saying this ship can make as many rooms as it likes? Even one for each of us?” a young girl with fluffy blonde hair asked.

“Of course she could but it don’t think that it’s a good idea,” said the tall Doctor with the comically long scarf. “Think how long those corridors would be. How would you decide who gets the one closest to the control room and who has to walk? It could end in a bloodbath! No, it think it would be better if all you humans, and other lifeforms that require regular sleep, share dormitories.”

“A very practical suggestion Doctor,” said a man in a sort of military looking uniform.

“Anyone who thinks that must have never had to share a room before. Who are you anyway and why are you dressed like that? Were you going to a party or somethin’?” Donna asked.

“Ma’am, I am the Brigadier of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce,” he informed her with a passive expression.

“What’s that though?” Donna asked. “Wait, isn’t that the thing Martha worked for? It is in’t it? But no one there wore those funny things.”

It sounded vaguely familiar to Yaz too, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Wait, what Martha? _Me_ Martha?!” a woman- presumably called Martha asked. “I’ve never been a part of any intelligence taskforce.”

“No you were, you were being all officer-y and the Doctor was disapproving,” Donna said with confidence.

“U. N. I. T... _UNIT_ ,” Yaz said, suddenly recalling where she knew it from. “Those are the people the Doctor tried to call on New Year’s Eve, but they’d been shut down or something.” Then she remembered who she was talking to. “Sorry,” she added weakly.

“What could shut down UNIT?!” the Brigadier asked, his voice both angry and alarmed.

“Umm, Brexit I think,” Yaz answered.

“Who is this Brexit? Could someone explain what is doing on?!” the Brigadier said, frustrated.

“I would, but I’m not entirely sure myself,” pinstriped suit Doctor said. “Donna-” he went to stand next to her- “have we have other adventures after the Christmas thing?”

She looked at him confused, “yes _of course_ we- do you... do you not remember?” she said, suddenly looking vulnerable.

“Oh no no, it’s not that I don’t remember, it just hasn’t happened to me yet,” the Doctor told her.

Donna looked at him angrily. “Is that suppose to be better?” she asked.

Yez could understand why she was upset, the idea of her Doctor not remembering most of their adventures, or even _one_ of their adventures, sounded horrible. She again looked round for her Doctor but still couldn’t find her.

“Well... no?” the Doctor answered uncertainly, “It’s just the truth. But I _am_ happy I’m going to get to spend more time with you, if that helps,” he told her, but then he frowned and turned away form her, “though, Martha Jones! What’s all this about working for UNIT in the future?” he asked disapprovingly.

“I’m glad you have such high opinions of the organisation I run,” the Brigadier commented sarcastically.

“I don’t know! I haven’t done it yet!” Martha said, defensively.

Yaz didn’t understand what the past Doctor’s problem was. If they were friends with the Brigadier of UNIT, why would they mind this girl joining them?

The confusing argument(?) was interrupted by a familiar voice from somewhere behind her. “Haya, I’m back. What are we talking about?” Yaz turned around in relief to look for her Doctor, but she just saw a walking pile of blue fabric approaching her.

“Doctor?” she asked uncertainly.

The pile of fabric dropped to the floor and the Doctor scrambled out from under them. “Hi Yaz!” she said.

“Hello Doctor,” Yaz replied. “Umm, what’s all this?” she said gesturing to the pile.

“I got you all T-shirts!” the Doctor answered excited.

There was a long purse as everyone stared at her in confusion.

“Why?” Ryan finally voiced everyone’s thoughts. Yaz nodded in agreement.

The Doctor pouted at everyone’s lack of enthusiasm. “Because Ryan, I realised I’m the only person here who knows everyone and I thought that might get confusing so I had the TARIDS make everyone T-shirts with their name on!” she explained and held up a random shirt. It was TARDIS blue like all the others, with the name ‘ADRIC’ printed on the front in large yellow block capitals.

Yaz was relieved to hear that there was a sensible reason. It was true that learning everyone’s name was going to be important if they were living together for the foreseeable future, however it would also be incredibly hard so they could do with all the help they could get.

“Thank you Doctor. I think it’s a great idea,” she told her.

The Doctor smiled happy at her, then turned to her past selves, “Oi, you lot. Help me hand them out to people you’ve met,” she called. She then started picking up random shirt, checking the names and then passing them to the corresponding person.

“Doctor?” Yaz asked nervously as the woman continued to hand out shirts. “Do you remember New Year’s Eve? And the Dalek?”

“The WHAT?” the Doctor in the leather coat asked, alarmed.

“It was just one and I dealt with it,” the Doctor assured her past self.

“That’s not the point, there shouldn’t be any!” he shouted.

“I don’t have time to talk about this right now,” she told him firmly, then turned to Yaz looking concerned. “Of course I remember it, it was only a couple weeks ago. Why do you ask?”

“I was worried we might not come from the same time, but we do, It was a couple of weeks for me too.”

The Doctor patted her on the shoulder comfortingly. “Even if we did come from different points in time, the things that make us friends wouldn’t have changed,” she told her.

Yaz wasn’t so sure, but she nodded anyway. The Doctor gave her a small smile then bent to pick up the next shirt.

Most people donned they’re new T-shirts quite happily, and most of the less enthusiastic just grumbled but went along begrudgingly. However, by the time all the shirts had been handed out, there were still two that refused to budge.

“No, I think not,” said the Brigadier, holding a shirt that said ‘ALISTAIR.’

“This cannot be necessary,” said a dark haired woman, who carrying a large brown over one arm and holding a shirt at arms length with the other that said ‘ROMANA’.

“Your future self was perfectly happy to wear one,” the Doctor with the long scarf said to the woman and pointed at a woman sitting on the floor with her arms crossed and wearing a shirt that also said ‘ROMANA’.

“I am going to make my own version with the same functionality but a more acceptable appearance at the soonest possible opportunity,” the future Romana said grumpily.

“See! _Perfectly happy_ ,” the Doctor told the brunette Romana. ‘The blonde’s past self?’ Yaz wondered. That seemed to be what they were saying, but Yaz would be the first to admit that she has understood very few things today.

The future Romana did look rather... colourful, with the deep blue shirt under her bright red coat, and the baggy shapeless T-shirts cut of it didn’t fit great with the sophisticated look she had going on. Yaz supposed that she was lucky it worked alright with her own jeans and jacket.

“I’m sorry Doctor, but I simply cannot change out of my uniform during work hours,” the Brigadier said.

“Brigadier, we are outside of time itself. Surely that cannot be counted as ‘work hours’!” the small scruffy Doctor said.

“That sounds like exactly the sort of logic you use when you abandon your job to go gallivanting off on those trips of yours-“

“ _Job_? What job?” the scruffy Doctor asked looking horrified.

“-But not me, I take my job seriously,” the Brigadier continued, “and it doesn’t end until the day ends, no matter where or when I go in the meantime.” He crossed his arms firmly.

“So you’re going to sleep in those clothes are you?” a woman who’s T-shirt said “LIZ” said with a small chuckle.

The Brigadier frowned at her. “I don’t see why no one else is taking this more seriously. Before we were pulled here, you said yourself Doctor, that the earth is danger. I dread to think what’s going on back at HQ in our absence.”

“How many times do I have to explain it to you, we are outside of time.” the velvet coated Doctor said. “ _Nobody_ will do _anything_ in our absence, or if you like, _everybody_ has already done _everything_.”

The Brigadier just stared uncomprehendingly at the Doctor, however the Doctor with the long scarf suddenly spun round with an alarmed expression.

“I’ve just remembered!” he shouted, his eyes comically wide.

Yaz jumped slightly at the sudden loud voice.

“What?!” the past Romana asked.

“All that talk of planets being in danger reminded me...” he said unhelpfully.

“Reminded you of _what_?!” both Romanas shouted.

“The Key to Time! I just remembered we left it behind when we came here.”

Most of the Doctors looked around at each other in alarm. All of the companions looked around at each other in confusion.

“You _just_ remembered it?” the future Romana asked incredulously. “I presumed as you hadn’t mentioned it that you thought it was safe, what with us being outside of time.”

“Maybe so, but it is UNLIMITED POWER OVER EVERYTHING THAT EVER WAS AND EVER WILL BE. THE POWER TO BEND REALITY ITSELF TO YOUR WILL. THE POWER TO END EVERYTHING OR CREATE ANYTHING,” he said in a scary over the top voice. “I just don’t think we can be too careful,” he finished in a casual voice with a little shrug.

“And it _just_ occurred to you might need to do something about it?” the past Romana asked.

“Yes, well. It didn’t occur to you either!” he said, pointing an accusing finger at her.

Romana raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Really,” she said, but it didn’t sound like a question. She opened her bag and tipped out several pinky purple transparent shapes and a weird rod thing. “As soon as we stopped ourselves from being wiped from existence, while _you_ were just waking up, I searched through each version of the TARDIS for ours. It’s that one fifth from the right by the way,” she said, pointing at said TARDIS. “The Key was exactly where we left it. _You’re welcome_.”

For her part Yaz had two thoughts (other than confusion, but that seemed to be a semi permanent fixture of today). One: that despite a childish resistance to useful blue T-shirts, this Romana lady was one smart and badass woman who she was already starting to like. Two: she had imagined the thing that could give ‘unlimited power over everything’ would look a little... cooler.

The Doctor stared silently at the Key for a moment, before suddenly regaining motion and awkwardly scratching his head. “Yes, well... very good,” he said quickly.

“Oh I really do like her,” said the blonde Romana looking at her past self. (Yaz wondered if she had that right. Did she really say that to herself?)

“Your modesty is ever astounding Romana,” the little Doctor with the hat said dryly.

“Hi, Sorry, but did you say those weird pink jewels hold unlimited power?” asked a girl with a shirt saying “JO”.

“Something like that,” confirmed the Doctor with the scarf, as Romana started putting them back into her bag.

“And why then, do you have this all powerful artefact exactly?” the old Doctor asked.

“Because I’ve developed a taste for world domination,” the scarf Doctor dead-panned. The past Romana smacked his head lightly.

“Ow! Romana!” he complained, rubbing his head. “Oh alright! Why do you think!? To keep it out of the hands of people who want to destroy the universe.”

“Oh now, don’t be ridiculous. Just you leave the universe alone and it will look after itself,” the old Doctor told him.

“Oh weren’t those the good old days,” Yaz’s Doctor said wistfully.

“If it’s so dangerous maybe you should find somewhere safer to put it,” Yaz said, warily eyeing the bag hanging over Romana’s shoulder.

“Yes you may be right,” the scarf Doctor said nodding at her. “Come along Romana,” he said to the past one as he strode towards his TARDIS, but when they got to the door he stopped and looked back at the future Romana. “Come along Romana?” he asked less certainty.

“Of course Doctor.” Romana smiled and ran after them.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that T-shirt!” Yaz’s Doctor shouted at them as they disappeared into the box. “Speaking of which...” she said as she turned to the man who had refused to wear the T-shirt.

“Nobody calls me Alistair,” the Brigadier said.

“What, not even your wife?” said the Doctor in the fancy Edwardian-exque clothes. “Does that not make things awkward?” Yaz was sure he must mean it as a joke but he said it with such sincerity that she couldn’t entirely be sure.

“In work environments,” the Brigadier clarified.

“I don’t think Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart would fit,” Yaz’s Doctor said with a frown. “-and I couldn’t just put ‘Brigadier’, then Liz would have to be just ‘Doctor’ and that would be very confusing.”

“You know, now you’ve suggested it I actually wouldn’t be opposed,” Liz said thoughtfully.

“Oh now don’t you start too,” the Doctor with the horrible colourful coat whined.

“Brigadier,” the girl Jo said sweetly. “Think of it like a necessary measure to efficiency handle being stuck in this unfamiliar involvement. It will help with communication and of course, seeing everyone join in will be good for morel. I’m sure you would agree that in such unprecedented circumstances as these, those things are a much more viral part of your job than wearing your uniform correctly or even what people call you.”

Yaz could see the Brigadier trying to maintain a stern expression, but it was futile. Soon an expression of soft fondness overtook him, as it would anyone if faced with puppy dog eyes such as Jo was directing at him.

“You make a firm case Miss Grant,” he said, finally relenting. “But it’s still Brigadier to you, the Doctor and other UNIT personal, do you hear?” he demanded as he took off his jacket.

“Of course Brigadier!” Jo said, nodding dramatically.

He pulled the T-shirt over his head, and Yaz had to admit it looked kind of ridiculous over the top of his button up and tie, with the white sleeves coming out from under the short blue ones, and his hat still firmly in place, but nevertheless Yaz managed to kept her face completely neutral.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” the Doctor said with a start. “So our friends will know which of us will recognise them and which of us won’t...” She took a small paper bag out of her coat pocket and from it she produced a round disk like thing and held it up for everyone to see. It was one of those comically large (about the size of a fist) birthday party badges which display the person’s new age in big shiny numbers. This one said ‘13’.

The Doctor proudly pinned it to her coat and started handing out the rest to her unsuspecting past selves.

The Doctors reactions were mixed at best. The recipients of badges ‘2’, ‘8’ and ‘11’ seemed more than happy to don them. ‘3’ and ‘10’ looked like they secretly liked them but wanted it to appear that they were neutral about it. ‘5’ and ‘7’ seemed generally reluctant but accepted it. The rest of them flat out refused.

“Oh how the tables have turned Doctor,” said a man who had been grumpy about the shirts but nevertheless now had the name ‘STEVEN’ across his chest.

He said it to the old Doctor, but when the man realised that he looked confused. “And who, exactly, are you, hmm?” he asked.

“Who am I? Here come off it Doc, it’s me! Steven!” he exclaimed.

“Well obviously I haven’t met you yet young man, and don’t call me ‘doc’,” he said grumpily.

Yaz frowned. It was strange how some people seemed to be pulled from the exact same moment and some were far apart, surely you would expect it to be one way or the other.

“I’m wearing my top,” Susan said to her grandfather. “Yours is only a badge, surely it’s not so bad.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Why is it shiny? No no no, it’s quite out of the question. Why is it so colourful? Moreover it it’s too colourful,” he said, stumbling over his words slightly.

“They’re just not tasteful at all,” said the Doctor wearing the red, blue, yellow and orange coat, the blue and white polka dot neck tie and the yellow and black stripped trousers. Yaz raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not tasteful? Really. Have you seen yourself lately?” the Doctor in the leather jacket asked.

The colourful Doctor ground his teeth. “How dare you! I am the only person on this ship _by a long way_ that has _any_ sense of style!”

The leather jacketed Doctor eyed up his other self for a moment. “I suppose you must have a good sense of style to so princely avoid any hint of it.”

There was a few ‘Ooooo’s from the crowd.

“ _Burn_ ,” Ryan said to Yaz and she nodded in agreement.

“Now Gentlemen,” the Doctor wearing the ‘3’ badge said to his fighting selves. “Don’t argue over this. I’m sure we can all agree that both of your outfits are equally hideous in different ways.”

Yaz firmly disagreed with that assessment. The leather jacket wasn’t that bad, in fact she wouldn’t even call it the lesser of two evils. There was just one evil and it was the coloured coat.

Both men reacted firmly against the third Doctor’s statement.

“Me? As bad as him? Lunacy!” the colourful Doctor screeched.

“Says the man dressed like a dandy,” said the leather jacketed Doctor, side eyeing the third Doctor’s clothes disdainfully.

“Says the man who looks like he is incapable of properly looking after his clothes,” the third Doctor shot back.

“It’s grunge chic.”

“What _on earth_ is ‘grunge chic?” asked one of the Doctors. The Fifth Doctor according to the badge pinned to his jacket next to a piece of celery.

“Do you mean to say he looks scruffy deliberately?” the old Doctor said, looking horrified. “I suppose next thing you are going to tell me is that your pin on bow tie is also askew by choice,” he said to his second self.

The second Doctor ran his hand over said bow tie. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said defensively.

“So we had a grunge phase!” the Thirteenth Doctor told the old Doctor. “It’s fine. Happens to loads of people, but as you can see, I clearly got over it.”

“What on earth is that on your ear?” the old Doctor asked, distracted.

“It’s an earring! In’t it cool!?” she said with delight.

The old Doctor huffed. “Young people and sticking metal through their skin. How irresponsible.”

“Young? I’m ten times your age! I’m the oldest person here!” she exclaimed. “I’m the grown up.” She put her hands on her hips and stuck her chin up, in a way that was probably meant to be commanding, but Yaz thought was kind of adorable.

“I’m was thinking of the fact that you’ve clearly been negatively influenced by all those juvenile primitive humans you’ve been travelling with,” the old Doctor said, frowning round at everyone.

“I beg your pardon?” a lady called Barbara said sharply.

“Oi, leave them out of this!” Yaz’s Doctor said angry.

“My first self’s wording was poor,” the third Doctor said, glaring at the old Doctor. “But surely he has a point in that some of us are being quite childish.”

“If you ask me, they’re all behaving childishly in different ways,” Yaz whispered to Ryan.

“Too right,” he agreed.

“I know, I know,” said one of the Doctors, who looked as old as the grumpy one, however unlike him, this Doctor moved with the energy of a younger man. “It’s a bad habit. I get like that every few regenerations, but being childish isn’t so bad really, other than being a bit cringe.”

“NO NO NO! ‘Cringe’ is _not_ an adjective!” the Doctor exclaimed, shaking his head in what looked like considerable distress over his future self’s language.

“Language changes! Get with the times grandpa!” Yaz’s Doctor gleefully told him. Yaz has been somewhat surprised by the way the Doctor talks to her past selves. She was not used to seeing her being mean to people, unless of course they’re bigots, or trying to take over the world, or she’s having one of her moments when she’s dumbass who doesn’t realise what she said was actually mean.

“Yeah, one might say it’s timey wimey,” the Tenth Doctor said with a grin.

“Timey what?!” the old Doctor repeated in horror.

“Oh don’t you start!” the old but energetic Doctor said to his tenth self.

“Oh, oh. I see! ‘Language changes but timy wimey is just going one step to far!” the Tenth Doctor snapped. “Well you know what, using cringe as an adjective, _is cringe_!”

“Your hair is cringe!” the Doctor retorted.

“ _What_ is going on here?!” a deep booming voice said. They turned and saw that the scarf Doctor had returned. He looked between his other selves with a frown. The Romanas stood on either side of him with their arms crossed and looking disapproving.

“Nothing, nothing at all. How is the Key?” the Fifth Doctor asked, his posture and expression giving Yaz the impression of the only normal person in a family of madmen, who was constantly needing to talk them out of things or do damage control, and was thoroughly tired of it.

“Hidden, a different place for each part, extra security measures in place. Best we can do in the present circumstances,” the scarf Doctor told them. “Anyway who cares about the safety of the universe, I see the Brigadier has agreed to wear the new uniform! It looks ridiculous! but no matter, now that just leaves one,” he said and turned to the past Romana.

“Yes! And you have to wear your badge!” the Second Doctor exclaimed gleefully.

The scarf Doctor’s head spun round from Romana to his past self. “My _what_?” he asked, incredulously.

Yaz’s Doctor sprinted over to him and handed him the offending circler object.

The scarf Doctor took it from her hand and examined it closely. “You want me to wear this thing? What ever for?!” he asked.

“So our friends can tell which of us have met them yet,” the Thirteenth Doctor told him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, they’re smarter than that. There’s only thirteen of us. They just have to memorise either those that came before, or those that came after, which ever is the smaller number, and then all other faces must be the other group, that way they’ll only have to remember six faces at most. They can manage that. Besides if we’re stuck here as long as I fear we might be, then everyone will soon enough know everybody.”

It was true that for at least Yaz and her friends, remembering which Doctors knew them would be far from an impressive feat. _The female one_. That was it. That was the list.

“But if you don’t wear numbers, what will we call you? How will we distinguish who we’re trying to speak to?” someone called Peri asked.

“You can’t refer to us by numbers! That’s very dehumanising... well not _human_ pre say, but you know what I mean,” the Eighth Doctor said.

Yaz nodded. “Well we could refer to you how I have been in my head. Old Doctor, scarf Doctor, coloured coat Doctor, scruffy Doctor, pinstriped Doctor,” she suggested.

Several of the Doctor’s friends giggled and started putting forward their own ideas, “Allen giraffe.” “Skinny boy.” “Grumpy penguin.” “Chubby rainbow.”

The Doctors looked between them alarmed. “On second thought,” said old but energetic one, “maybe the numbers aren’t so bad.”

“You cannot be serious!” the scarf Doctor exclaimed to his other self.

“Doctoooor!” someone yelled in frustration, and then through the crowd, Leela appeared and shoved her way towards the scarf one. “I am fed up of listening to these little men argue, so stop encouraging them and wear your trinket!” she told him angrily.

The past Romana was eyeing Leela with curiosity. “You know this woman Doctor? Because she threatened me with a knife.”

“Yes, that does happen sometimes,” the scarf Doctor said seeming unworried. Yaz wondered if that was supposed to be reassuring.

“You are wrong. I did not threaten you, I threatened her.” Leela pointed at future Romana.

“That’s what I said, you threatened me,” past Romana said and crossed her arms.

Leela looked at them in puzzlement. “Doctor, I don’t understand this woman,” she told him.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure lots of people have that problem, they like to make things complicated. But don’t point knives at them ok? They’ve my friend,” the Doctor said.

The future Romana had been watching Leela, but turned to the Doctor and raised an eyebrow. “Was there something wrong with the wardrobes manifestation routing when you travelled with her?”

“What? No. Why do you ask?” the Doctor said, clearly taken by surprise.

“I was wondering if that was the reason for her lack of substantial clothing.”

It was true that Leela’s outfit was... lacking, to the point that Yaz had thought it was a tacky Halloween costume at first.

The scarf Doctor however turned to Leela and looked at her “outfit” thoughtfully. He scratched his chin. “Leela can wear a loincloth if she wants to,” he said.

“I second that!” someone shouted.

“Jack stop it!” someone else shouted in response.

Leela looked very confused, like she was completely oblivious as to why people were reacting to her outfit so. That brought up a serge of protectiveness in Yaz. How could she make an informed decision about how she wanted to present herself, when no one had explained to her the connotations different options had?

She walked up to her and gently put her hand on her arm. “Ignore them,” she told her. “They are just getting very off subject.” She turned to the Doctors. “I believe you were discussing wearing your badges? Maybe you could get back to that.”

“A very good suggestion!” someone called ‘Clara’ said. “Come on, before we’re _all_ grey please.”

“It’s silly, I don’t wear silly things anymore,” the old but energetic Doctor said.

“I don’t care about your style preferences! I want to have a clear and easy way to remember way of referring to you all!” Clara exclaimed.

“I’ll wear it if she wears her top,” the scarf Doctor said, pointing at the past Romana.

Romana laughed. “Not much of a chance of that happening,” she told him.

Yaz groaned, a part of her wondered if they should just give up on these six, but she worried that everyone who was reluctant but went along with the T-shirts/badges, would change their mind if they saw exceptions being made.

“You guys,” the Thirteenth Doctor addressed them, “everyone else has cooperated, and we’re supposed to be a team, we’re supposed be helping each other.”

“Well I never asked nor wanted to be part of this team as a matter of fact,” the old Doctor grumbled.

The Thirteenth Doctor’s eyebrow twitched, but she soldiered on. “Knowing where each of me is in our timeline will be helpful for our friends, even if it’s not completely necessary, and yeah, referring to us with numbers would be rude in most settings and I’m totally not for that-“ she said with a grimiest-“, but it would make it will make sentences like ‘the Doctor wants to talk to you,’ Or ‘have you seen the Doctor,’ less confusing. That’s what it can be used for, not ‘good morning Thirteen,’ ‘do you take sugar in your tea Thirteenth?’ ...Yes by the way. To the sugar. No less than three spoons.”

“Oh no, she’s as bad as you!” someone said. Yaz glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the voice and saw a redhead who’s shirt said ‘MEL’ standing next to the colourful coat Doctor.

He startled and turned to look at her. “Are you talking to _me_?” he asked, aghast.

“Who else?” Mel said in answer.

“Well me me or me for one. _As_ bad _as me. Really,_ ” he grumbled.

“Hay!” Yaz called. “Maybe the tea thing is not the most important thing the Doctor said. Maybe you could all focus on the other things, kay?”

“Yes Doctor. You must see that they don’t have a malicious engender, simply that it would be useful,” ‘Barbara told the First Doctor.

“Oh Doctor _please_ ,” ‘Vicki’ said. “I certainly would find it less confusing if I had some way of referring to all these Doctors. Well, less confusing relatively speaking anyway.”

“You shouldn’t argue with yourself and they do have you outvoted, 8 to 5,” Susan reminded her grandfather.

The old Doctor looked between the three girls, “My, my. I seemed to be under attack from all fronts,” he said, but there was little malice in his voice. “Very well, very well. If it would please you all so I will wear the silly badge.”

Susan squealed and hugged him, which Yaz thought was a bit of an overreaction, but maybe for him it was a big give, she didn’t know.

“They’re right you know Doctor,” said girl who’s shirt said ‘Rose’. “Bout you being outvoted, only now it’s 9 to 4.”

“Do you think you can get me with _peer pressure_?!” the leather jacketed Doctor asked her, sounding offended at the suggestion.

“I’m not normally one to conform, but in one this case I think the general consensus is right,” River said to the other old looking Doctor. “Besides I think they look rather fetching.” She bagged her eyelashes at him.

Yaz looked at her suspiciously.

The old Doctor rolled his eyes at her. “That’s a lie River. Believe it or not, I’m not that stupid.”

River dropped her enticing smile for a cold glare. “Doctor wear the badge,” she demanded.

The Doctor’s smug look fell and he raised his hands in surrender. “whatever you you want dear!” He quickly pinned his ‘12’ badge onto his coat.

‘ _Dear?_ ’ Yaz mouthed.

“ _How_ did you _do_ that?” Peri asked River in awe.

“It’s a precise art,” River said, vaguely.

“However she did it, it’s now it’s 10 to 3,” Rose commented, giving the leather jacketed Doctor a raised eyebrow.

The Doctor ground his teeth. “It doesn’t matter how many there are against me,” he said, but Yaz thought he looked a little less confident.

“And I have already named my terms,” the scarf Doctor said.

The Thirteenth Doctor turned to the past Romana. “I’m sure the shirts won’t be necessary for long, just while everyone is getting to know each other.”

“I’m not concerned with getting to know anyone, just with finding a way to fix this mess.”

The future Romana approached her past self. “Humour them,” she said. “It’s the quickest way to get things done. Besides, you’re not so plain that a stupid outfit could make you look less pretty.”

“Ha, like flattery would work on h-” the scarf Doctor said with a laugh.

“Alright,” Romana decided, interrupting the Doctor. She took the T-shirt and pulled it over her head.

The Doctor stared at her for a second. “Clearly I was mistaken. Flattery will get you very far.”

“Well then, you had a deal, did you not Doctor?” the Thirteenth Doctor said to her past self.

“I suppose I did...” the scarf Doctor answered, and with a sigh he pinned on his badge.

“11 to 2. Who wants to be the last person to be persuaded...” Rose said.

Yaz noticed the leather jacketed Doctor eyeing the coloured coat one nervously. “Oh alright,” he said. He pinned the badge to his leather. “It’s no so bad...” he said uncertainty.

Yaz breathed a sigh of relief, now they were getting somewhere.

“Well Doctor,” Peri said, “it seems it’s just you now.”

“Yes, just I, the only one with dignity. What a shame,” he said with a sigh, then smiled smugly. “Actually I don’t care.”

“I can understand that,” the Twelfth Doctor said. Yaz’s eyes snapped to him in alarm. “It is a really ugly badge,” he continued. “I have good taste so I can see that.”

The other Doctor scoffed. “ _You_? _Taste_? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Clearly I do, I can see that that badge is ugly, a point which we are in agreement about,” he explained.

The coloured coat Doctor glared at him. “Now _hold on_ , there is no agreement about anything,” he insisted.

“Yes there is, you think it’s ugly and we all agree with you,” the Twelfth Doctor said slowly, like he was talking to a confused child. “Which makes sense, we’re all the same person after all, our tastes are the same.”

“Dream on!” he yelled. “It’s actually not so bad.”

“Not so bad?” the Seventh Doctor exclaimed. “It is the very antithesis of my good dress sense.” At this point Yaz started to smell a conspiracy.

“You wouldn’t know good dress sense if it hit you in the face,” the coloured coat Doctor shot back, “Really this badge isn’t that bad.”

“No no it is, I distinctly remember thinking yours was particularly ugly,” the Thirteenth Doctor said, waving her arms around to emphasise her point.

“I see what you mean, it really is rather dreadful,” the Fifth Doctor commented, wrinkling his nose.

“Clearly you lot know nothing. Now I’m looking at it, this badge is really quite stylish,” he said, holding it up and examining it.

Everyone held their breath.

“In fact I think it will rather compliment my ensemble.” He pinned it in next to his cat brooch.

Everyone sighed in relief. Yaz couldn’t believe how ridiculously long this had taken. It _shouldn’t_ have taken so long, it was after all a simple and minor thing that would have taken maybe ten minutes with most people. It this was any indication of how easy things would be going forward then God help them.

Still at least it was done. Everyone had their identification which would make things easier going forward.

“Right, so sleeping arrangements then,” the Third Doctor reminded everyone.

Yaz groaned deeply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I finished this chapter I was so relieved to have finally introduced the T-shirts so I didn't have to describe everyone by their hairstyles anymore =D
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone!


	6. SIX

Sarah Jane sighed in expiration as she sat on the floor, her chin resting on her hand while she listened to the hoo-ha everyone was making about their rooms.

“I don’t want to room with randomly selected strangers Doctor!” Tegan said.

“Same for me. I think we should get some kind of choice,” Peri argued.

“And what criteria exactly are you going to make that choice on? Hairstyle? Most of you don’t know anyone here,” The Seventh Doctor told them. “No, someone who knows all of you sorts you into different dormitories.” Sarah Jane followed his gaze to the Thirteenth Doctor who was sitting cross legged on the floor scribbling in a notebook.

“I’m working on it! Give me a mo,” she told everyone.

Yaz looked over her shoulder. “You’re just making a list of everyone,” she said confused.

“Yeah, well I don’t want to forget anyone. Now how many of you lot are there?”

“No idea, you tell us,” Sarah Jane said.

“Do I have to work out everything?”

“Yes, you are the only one who has met everyone,” the Eighth Doctor said.

“Well I don’t remember how many of you there were!”

“Don’t keep notches in your bedpost?” Jack said, and Sarah Jane glared at him for the rather inappropriate comment.

“No Jack! Stop it, it’s not like that!” the Tenth Doctor yelled.

The Thirteenth Doctor groaned. Yaz patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll do a head count,” she said.

Sarah Jane had a bad feeling that a head count would take ages, however she was ready to do what she could to help, but then she felt something pushing at her side. She jumped up as a strange dog like machine rolled past her.

“A head count is unnecessary. Scanning life forms,” the ‘dog’ said in a male sounding- but quite high pinched- voice.

“K9!” the Thirteenth Doctor squealed and jumped across the floor to hug him.

“Hay, it’s Sarah Jane’s dog! Wait, didn’t he get destroyed?” she heard someone say.

“Excuse me!?” Sarah Jane exclaimed in surprise and confusion. She was pretty sure she would remember if she’d seen the robot dog before, let alone _owned_ it.

The man who’d spoken- Mickey- stared at her for a second before a look of recognition washed over him and he quickly shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything,” he muttered. Sarah Jane narrowed her eyes at him, but decided she could investigate later as he looked a little freaked out at that moment.

“Scan complete. Fifty-three life forms detected including you and your other selves Master,” the robot dog informed them.

“Oh good dog!” The Fifth Doctor told it, crouching down to rub it’s head like it could actually feel it. “Such a useful dog. Where have you been hiding?” he asked.

“Negative Master. I was not hiding, you did not see me.”

The Doctor scratched his chin. “Well you are somewhat small compared to everyone else, I supposed you would get at little lost in the sea of legs,” he reasoned.

“Affirmative Master,” the dog confirmed

“Query Master,’ the dog asked.

Several of the other Doctors had got down on the floor around him now and where petting him. Specifically the Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh. It was the last who answered. “Yes old friend?” he said.

“Why did I not receive a T-shirt?” it asked.

“K9, you already have your name written across your casing!” the Fourth Doctor pointed out.

The robot dog hung his head.

“Oh K9, Don’t feel left out. Here, how about we get you a new collar that matches everyone shirts, alright?” the Thirteenth Doctor suggested.

The dog lifted his head and wagged his tail. Why a robot would need or _want_ a collar, was beyond Sarah’s understanding, but she had to admit there was something about this machine that was incredibly endearing to her. How strange...

“Anyway, about those bedrooms,” the Twelfth Doctor reminded everyone. “If we take away ourselves and the Romanas, who really won’t be needing sleep on a regular basis, then it’s thirty-eight. Can’t be spilt very well. Four dormitories of five beds and three of six? Or two of four and five of six?”

“Two and five,” the Thirteen Doctor decided. “Even numbers are better ‘cause bunk beds.”

“Are bunk beds a necessity?” Yaz asked.

“Well I don’t know about a necessity, but I would imagine they’re great fun,” the Second Doctor said.

“I can imagine six normal beds in one room ending up looking rather like a hospital ward,” the Eighth Doctor pointed out with a disapproving frown.

“Bunk beds are fine,” Sarah Jane snapped. “the main thing is, who will we be sharing them with?”

All heads returned to the Thirteenth Doctor, who picked up her notepad again. “ _Working on it_ ,” she assured. She glanced up at everyone for a moment and her gaze fixed on someone behind Sarah Jane. “Yes Susan?” she said.

Sarah Jane turned and saw a teenage girl holding her hand up. “Why did you not discount me from the robot dog’s numbers? as I am a time lord,” she asked.

“You’re a _WHAT_?” Rose exclaimed.

“They’re our people,” Susan explained.

“No, that’s- that’s not what I was confused about...” Rose said.

The Ninth Doctor put his hand on her shoulder. “Rose, better not,” he told her.

Several of the older Doctors (older in teams of their actual point in their timelines, not in physical appearance) looked nervously between one another.

Sarah Jane frowned. It was interesting to see another of the Doctor’s people to be sure, but she didn’t think it was interesting enough to match Rose’s reaction.

“In answer to your question Susan, you are still growing so you sleep a bit more than me and Romana, and moreover I thought it might be nice for you to make friends with your roommates,” the Twelfth Doctor explained.

“Yes yes, remember how well you got along with that nice young girl you shared a caravan with in Cathay?” the First Doctor said.

Susan crossed her arms. “I doubt I’ll find many friends like Ping-Cho again, and you don’t have to set up friendships for me Grandfather, I’m not a child.”

“Grandfather?” Sarah Jane mouthed.

“ _Grandfather_?!” Martha exclaimed. “You have a grandchild?!”

“Yes I do!” the Second Doctor answered with a large grin.

“Wait no sorry hold up,” Rose said holding her hands up. “She’s both of your granddaughter? Ya mean you really were serious about all these doctor people are _my_ Doctor? As in the same person?”

“Of course! Come on Rose you’re normally faster than that!” the Ninth Doctor said.

“No Doc, Rose has a point. How is that _possible_?” Jack asked.

“You’ve all got different faces, how can one person have thirteen different faces?” Victoria asked, a furrow in her brow.

A chorus of confused agreement followed.

“What exactly did you all think it meant when River said we were all the Doctor?” the Twelfth Doctor asked with an eye roll and a sigh of annoyance.

“Some kinda title or job or somethin’, that you’ve all held over the years? ‘Cause like, _normal_ people don’t go around changing their face. They just don’t,” Donna said.

“Nah, I’d be rubbish at a job. It’d be _**boring**_. Jobs are _boring_ ,” the Tenth Doctor told her.

“We really are all the same person, whether you like it or not,” the Sixth Doctor said. Sarah side eyed him for the strangely ominous tone.

“Personally I do not, but what can you do...” the Twelfth Doctor muttered.

“Look Doctor, I accepted you changed your face once, but thirteenth times? Is that not a bit excessive?” the Brigadier chastised.

“Maybe. But look at this ones smile. Definitely worth it,” the Ninth Doctor said with a toothy grin.

Sarah Jane herself had no trouble believing all these people were the Doctor, but she’d had the benefit of once seeing him regenerate right in front of her eyes, before that she would have been just as sceptical as anyone else.

“When our species are close to death, our bodies regenerate into a new form,” the brunette Romana said in a dry tone, like she thought it an uninteresting or obvious fact. Sarah supposed it was to her

“If you’re all the same person, can you remember this happening previously?” Jo asked.

“Good question. No I can’t,” the Fifth Doctor answered.

“Is that good or bad?” Jo asked.

“Don’t know. I can’t even identify a gap in my memory,” he answered.

A pause followed.

“So all these ‘friends of the Doctor’?” Rose asked, changing the subject.

“We’re people he travelled with,” Amy said.

“ _Really_ ,” Rose said. Sarah Jane sensed a strange hint of irritation in her voice. “He’s never mentioned any of ya.”

“What, never?” Sarah Jane asked. Rose’s words hurt more than she would like to admit. The Doctor was her closest friend, and he had _never mentioned her_?

“Hmm, let me think...” Rose looked around at the strangers surrounding her. “Sarah Jane, Liz, Ace... Nope! none of you, _ever_.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, he has _certainly_ mentioned _you_ ,” Martha told Rose. Sarah Jane detected a hint of irritation in her voice too.

Rose looked conflicted in response to that.

“Professor you never told anyone about me?” Ace asked, her eyes full of hurt.

“Now Ace, just because I didn’t tell her about you doesn’t mean I think little of you,” the Seventh Doctor told her.

“Well I wasn’t thinking that before you said it but now I am!” Ace exclaimed.

“Oh Ace, you know that’s not true, you _know it’_ _s not_ ,” he told her.

“Why would you make me leave then? ‘Cause you clearly did if they don’t know me. Doctor the TARDIS is my home! I don’t want to leave!” she yelled. A mixture of anger and fear threatening to bring tears to her eyes.

“Ace, I come from the same time as you. I have no idea what will happen to you, but I promise I will always do everything in my power to protect you,” he assured her and gently booped her on the nose.

Sarah Jane couldn’t entirely understand what this girl was feeling as she always planned to go home eventually, but still, she didn’t want to leave the TARDIS anytime soon either. She hadn’t given much thought to when exactly she would leave, she only knew that she wanted it to be the very distant future. Too distant to think about. But here now were the people who would replace her. Living proof that her departure would one day be a reality- no worse, a _memory_. For the Doctors. Even _her_ Doctor judging by how familiar he seemed to be with the Romana in the white dress and how they hadn’t cared to include her in that pink cube key thing.

“Doctor, I don’t ever want to stop travelling with you either, so what happened then? You get bored and decided to leave me behind?” Rose accused the Ninth Doctor.

“No! _No_!” The Tenth Doctor exclaimed. “It wasn’t my choice, _it wasn’t either of our choice_!” Sarah noticed the heartbroken look on his face. What ever happened must have been bad, and recent.

Rose must have noticed too because the anger disappeared from her face as she turned to the older Doctor. “Hay, it hasn’t happened yet, so what ever it is we can fix it right?” she asked, her eyes darting between him and his past self, like although her comment was directed at the older, she still couldn’t quite get her head round the idea of them being anyone but the younger.

“No, you can’t change the past,” the Thirteenth Doctor said immediately but gently.

“I’m not the past yet am I though!” She shouted. “It’s still my future. Aren’t I allowed to change my future?”

The Tenth Doctor looked torn. Seeing this the Eleventh strode up to him. “No, don’t you dare,” he said darkly.

“Why? Everyone being here is already a huge paradox, if the universe can handle that then can’t it handle a few tiny changes?!”

The Eleventh Doctor looked at him incredulously. “ _Why_? If Rose was still with you, can you be sure you’d have been in the right time and place to meet Donna? Or Martha? If you did meet them, would they have come to travel with you? How many things would change? How many planets not visited? Friends not made? Loves not lost?”

“And that goes for the rest of you!” He said to his other selves. “Trust me I _know_ how much you want to help old friends, but for the friends you haven’t met yet, _don’t_.”

Sarah Jane looked around nervously, taking in the tense atmosphere that the room was now steeped in. She didn’t like it one bit.

“Trying to change things right now could cause more immediate problems than leaving things be. Let’s not be too hasty with anything, after all it doesn’t seem like any of us are going anywhere soon,” she said with a pointed look at the Tenth Doctor.

She was happy to see he nodded in acceptance at her. At least her word still had some sway with him, even if he apparently never even mentioned her to his new friends.

xXx

Meanwhile Rose was definitely not enjoying herself. So much had been thrown at her in such a short amount of time and she was struggling to process it all. Firstly, the Doctor had a grandchild. Ok, well he _was_ 900, so she supposed it wasn’t all that surprising. She could deal with that. Next she had never imagined the Doctor had travelled with others before her but _clearly_ she’d been wrong, and looking around she couldn’t help but notice a trend amongst them- young pretty skinny white women. He clearly had a type. Was she just the most resent in a long line distractions? _No_ , she couldn’t believe that, but the thought still unnerved her. And then she was processing that the doctor could change his face. That was mighty boggling. She could understand it in theory, but when she looks at the other Doctors she can’t see him at all. And above all of that was the clear fact that the future Doctor wasn’t travelling with her anymore, and that they’d parted in a way that had hurt him.

While all these thoughts raged inside her head, she was vaguely aware of the conversation turning back to the sleeping arrangements. She felt a wave of resentment wash over her at the thought of being bundled into a room with strangers, just another in a long line of friends. In the original timeline this was supposed to be her moment in the blue box, but now everything had got twisted about and it was everyone’s moment.

But then she supposed that anyone could be feeling that way, maybe there could be new friends here after all. And if not she’s still got Jack… and _Mickey_... how the heck did Mickey get here anyway?

“Well I think it’s fair to say we’ll need to have more female dorms than male. They appear to have us rather outnumbered,” said Alistair, or ‘the Brigadier’ as some people had called him.

“Can’t we just have mixed gender rooms? This isn’t the 50s, or anything. I mean come on!” Bill protested.

“Good gracious no, that would be very improper,” he said looking scandalised.

Rose sighed. She didn’t think it really mattered either way.

“We’ll have both,” the blonde woman said without looking up from her notepad- _The Doctor_ rose reminded herself. The Doctor would be a girl sometime in the future... that was another thing to get her head round. “You all come from a variety of times, so some of you are going to be comfortable with mixed gender rooms and some of you ain’t. That’s fine.”

“Ok, how about this?” she said after a few minutes. “Dorm one: Susan, Vicki, Dodo and Victoria. Dorm two: Adric, Ace, Jame and Zoe. Let’s call these two the youth rooms. Dorm three: Mickey, Martha, Mel, Jack, Turlough and Leela. Dorm four: River, Amy, Rory, Donna, Nardole and Steven. Those are the mixed dorms. Dorm five: Graham, Ryan, Ian, Ben, the Brigadier and Harry. That’s the male dorm. Dorm six: Barbara, Liz, Sarah Jane, Clara, Polly and Peri. That’s the female dorm. Dorm seven: Bill, Yaz, Rose, Tegan, Nyssa and Jo.”

Rose frowned, a whole dorm of people she’d never met? She’d rather bunk with Jack, or even Mickey.

“But I just said I don’t care about gendered room,” Bill said.

“Yeah I kinda ran out of men,” the Doctor admitted.

“Not all that surprising in this crowd,” Rose muttered, then sighed and looked around to locate her new roommates.

It seemed many people were having the same idea, so soon enough the crowd started to split into groups. Rose easily found Bill as she’d already noticed her when she was talking, Yaz and Jo quickly found the two of them, and together the four of them soon found Tegan and Nyssa.

All five woman were quite young like Rose, and pretty, though in her opinion most of them were dressed a bit funky.

For a minute they all looked round at each other unsure of what to say, but then Rose’s heard her stomach growling and thought that was as good a starter subject as any.

“Anyone else hungry?” She asked.

“Yeah, bit,” Yaz answered, however Tegan and Nyssa frowned at them and looked to each other in confusion.

“But we’ve just had breakfast,” Tegan said.

“Breakfast?” Rose asked surprised. “But it’s nearly tea time.”

Bill groaned loudly. “It was like midday for me. Are we all gonna be space jet lagged?” she asked in frustration.

“Well it’s _bound_ to happen when you move time zones the way we do. Thankfully I know of some herbal teas that make you feel better, and we’re got lots of interesting new people to distract us from the exhaustion,” Jo said, doing this cute little nodding thing as she went. She actually looked rather tided already Rose noticed.

“What time was it for you before ya came here?” she asked her.

Jo scrunched her face up thoughtfully. “I don’t know really,” she said. “We spent the last few days in these underground tunnels on this mining planet, hiding from the governor’s robot guards and helping the local people. You couldn’t really keep track of time, nor could you get a good rest on those cold damp cave floors. Then, just as we finally got back to the TARDIS and were heading home, _this_ happens,” she told them and suppressed a yawn.

Rose raised her eyebrows. Luckily her own adventures with the Doctor tended to be much less drawn out.

“Ok, let’s grab food and then maybe we should all have an early bed,” Bill suggested.

“We only woke up four hours ago!” Nyssa told them.

“We can’t go to bed yet!” Tegan exclaimed.

“She’s been sleeping on a cave floor for several days!” Bill said gesturing at Jo. “I’m not tired either, but we need to get in sync and we can’t make her stay up any longer!”

Jo shook her head wildly. “Oh no, don’t worry about me, I would love to stay up and meet people,” she assured them, however, even as she said it her eyes were drooping.

“Come on, let’s have a quick snack before bed,” Yaz said and led them in the direction of the corridor.

“Hay! Where you lot going?” the female Doctor called after them.

“Food then bed,” Yaz told her.

The Doctor pouted. “Already? But we just got here...”

“She’s tired and we all need to get in sync,” Bill said pointing at Jo.

“Fine, fine... one of the most inexplicable things ever to happen to you.., thought we might all figure it out together... but eat if you like,” she said hanging her head.

“Alright, see ya,” Rose said with a grin.

“Doctor I’m hungry too,” someone else said, but Rose didn’t catch who.

“Me as well,” said another person.

“Oh alright, all of you go and have lunch,” the Doctor grumbled as more people started to utter similar sentiments. “I’ll just be here, with... myselves.”

“You know what, I’m kind of hungry too,” the Ninth Doctor said.

“Yes, I was about to say the same thing!” the Second Doctor exclaimed.

“Alright then, you go and eat and _we’ll_ stay here to fix the timeline,” the Fifth Doctor told his other selves.

“Actually we should probably first program those dormitories and make sure they’re locked in,” the Twelfth Doctor pointed out.

The Fifth Doctor frowned at him in annoyance. “Alright, but that doesn’t anywhere near as impressive...” he said.

xXx

The kitchen was not designed for the number of passengers currently on the TARDIS, so everyone had split off amongst the multiple versions of the time ship. Jo was in the TARDIS prime with three of her dorm mates as Nyssa and Tegan had said they wanted to hang out with an old friend. However the numbers where made back up by Rose’s friend Jack and his roommate Leela, who seemed to have already somewhat made friends with Yaz.

“So did any of you know about the whole face changing thing, because I have got to say I did not see that coming,’ Jack said.

All the others shook their heads. Jo raised her hand. “I did,” she said. “But only after I met his past self... that was a confusing day, or at least so I thought before today.”

“I’m not even sure they are all the Doctor,” Rose announced. “It might be a trick or somethin’ and even if it’s true that they’re what happens when they nearly die, doesn’t mean they’re the same person, I mean they don’t even act alike. What makes someone who they are if not how they act?!”

Everyone nodded apart from Bill and Leela who looked thoughtful and unreadable respectfully.

Jo had to agree that her impression of the two Doctors she had previously met was more along the lines of reunited brothers than the actual same person.

“Yeah but... all people change over time, so why is it so strange the Doctor would?” Bill asked.

“These are pretty drastic changes though,” said Yaz. “They don’t seem anything like my Doctor.”

“Well what _is_ your one like, wait which ones are all of yours anyway?” Bill asked.

“The one with the leather,” Jack said.

“The ninth, he’s the ninth,” Rose clarified.

“The one with the fancy velvet clothes, he’s the third,” Jo said sleepy.

“Mine is the female. Makes her pretty easy to identify,” Yaz said.

“My the twelfth. The one with the fluffy hair and the eyebrows,” Bill said.

Everyone looked at Leela, who had her feet resting against the rim of the table while she absentmindedly fiddling with her knife. After a moment she seemed to feel the eyes on her and looked up.

“Which Doctor do you travel with?” Bill asked.

“The evil one, though it is not true that he is evil,” she told them.

Jo glanced around the table and confirmed that everyone looked as confused as she felt.

“Oh he’s the one with the scarf right?” Yaz said eventually. “I remember you talking to him now.” Leela nodded in response.

“So what are your Doctors like? What are their underlying personality traits?” Bill asked. “I want to know if they’re anything like mine. He’s funny and an idiot... but also kinda smart.”

“My Doctor is... wonderful and kind,” Yaz answered.

“Smart, and impossible,” Jo answered, smiling at the thought of her strange alien friend.

“Man,” Leela said simply.

“Sexy and mysterious,” Jack said with a wink. Under normal circumstances Jo may have been very shocked to hear the word sexy spoken in relation to the Doctor, but has it been mentioned yet that she was very tired? So as it was she just raised her eyebrow slightly.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Ignore him,” she told them. “No, our Doctor is....” she paused, looking for the right word. “Sad,” she said eventually.

Jo’s looked up at that. She couldn’t imagine her Doctor as sad. Yes bad stuff had happened to him. She was sure there were a lot of people who he had had to leave behind over the years, but he always faced new days with cheer.

“I know we just gave zero similar answers, but... most of the things you guys said did remind me of the Doctor,” Bill said, looking round at everyone with twinkly eyes. “He’s smart and an idiot, he’s wonderful and impossible, he’s kind, funny and mysterious, he is in fact- at the moment- a man, and some of the time, not all the time but a sometimes, he’s sad.”

Jo agreed on all but the sad part, however maybe time could be responsible by for that she thought sadly.

“He is not sexy though,” Bill said to Jack then gained a thoughtful expression. “Well I suppose the female on-“ she stood up abruptly, eyes wide. “Wait, did I just think that future space granddad was sexy? Am I attracted to space granddad? What is wrong with me!?” She slumped back down into her chair. “I think I need a drink.”

“How about some rest instead, I think Jo needs it,” Yaz suggested.

Jo flung her head up from where she was laying it on the table. “What?” she asked. “I’m fine.”

xXx

“Doctor? We need to talk to you,” Nyssa heard Tegan call as she followed her back into the control room.

Nine faces look up in response. “ _Our Doctor_ ,” Nyssa clarified.

Their young faced Doctor got up from where he had been tinkering with the console and ran a hand through his messy hair.

“Yes, right, of course... lead the way!” he said holding an arm out and followed them out into the corridor.

“So what seems to be the matter?” he asked after neither of them said anything for a few moments.

Nyssa looked to Tegan, but she had clammed up, so Nyssa addressed him. “Doctor, it’s about Adric,” she said.

His face immediately closed off. “Oh? What about him?”

“I heard what your future self said about changing the things, but... he’s here, alive, are we supposed to...” she sighed in frustration. “Are we supposed to just pretend everything is fine and let him die?”

They had been eager to spend time with their friend again, but when they had had lunch with him they had both found it incredibly painful and hard to know what to say, so afterwards they had agreed they needed to discuss it with the Doctor.

The Doctor stared at them with pain in his eyes. “Nyssa, Tegan. You both know that if there was a way to save Adric I wouldn’t hesitate, but warning him with our foreknowledge would be no less changing the past than if we’d travelled back and stopped that ship from crashing!” He rubbed his hand over his face in distress. “Besides, I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but if we are going to make it out without changing the timeline in all sorts of ways, then there may be a possibility we will lose some memories.”

“What?! Why?” Tegan exclaimed.

“Because too much of the future has already been given away today. Who knows how much we will all know by the time this is sorted, it maybe the only way to possibly keep the timeline intact, and so Adric cannot know of his fate because if he did but then forgot when he returned to normal time, all that would have been achieve would be to make him miserable while he’s here!” His voice cracked and he took a deep breath to centre himself, then he put a hand on each of their shoulders and smiled at them with sympathy. “Being here may or may not be the nefarious plot of some unidentified evildoer, but it does mean you get extra time with Adric, and it means- even if he doesn’t know it- that he gets extra time to live. These are good things to be happy about, so enjoy each other’s company while you can.”

Nyssa nodded. She had known that the Doctor would say something along those lines, but Tegan had needed to hear it, and Nyssa herself had felt lost as to how she was going to stand living with this secret. She still wasn’t sure, but at least she no longer felt as guilty.

She turned her head to see how Tegan was fairing. Her brows were furrowed and her lips were a tight line. “It’s not fair,” she said.

“No matter how much humans try, death has never been about fair,” the Doctor told them. “Now off you go. Go talk to Adric or get to know some of the others,” he said gently.

“Alright,” Nyssa said. “Thank you Doctor.”

As she grabbed Tegan’s hand and lead her away the Doctor watched them go.

Once they disappeared around a corner he turned and headed back into the console room where most of his other selves and a few of his past and future companions were gathered.

“What was that about?” his ninth self asked.

“Adric,” he replied causing is future selves eyes to grow dark. His thirteenth self lay her hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort.

“Hay, we understand what you’re feeling,” she said. He smiled at her in thanks then went back to futilely tinkering with the console in hopes that something would reveal itself that explained some of this mystery.

“Ah, you are past that point then...” his seventh self said, then his brow furrowed. “Where are you, exactly?”

“Adric’s been... gone about a month. Travelling with Nyssa and Tegan, and now Turlough as well,” he said, unsure of why it mattered.

“And your companions are also at this point?” his future self asked.

“I believe so,” he answered. They seemed to be, or at least, if they were from different times, it couldn’t be too fair off.

His future self placed his fingertips together and hummed thoughtfully.

“Yeah, that’s been happening with a few people, where they came from the same time,” his thirteenth self commented, “like me and Yaz, or my fourth incarnation and Romana’s first. Seems unlikely to just be a coincidence.”

“And me Master,” K9 piped up. “I am also from the same point in time as Doctor Master and Mistress Romana.”

“That is rather strange,” the Fifth Doctor agreed with a frown. “I suppose if each one of my companions also came with their current me, then there would have to be an awful lot of me, and it looks like whatever pulled us here wanted only one of each incarnation, but that doesn’t explain why it’s not just random for everyone.”

“There are thirteenth TARDISes, presumably one for each Doctor,” Romana II reasoned. “Anyone who was in one of them at the time could have been dragged along with you, so that leaves the question of how I and other’s who weren’t got here.”

“Are you saying that you think that people were brought here by two different methods?” the Doctor asked, truly puzzled by this whole situation.

“Do any of you have any reason to believe your current travelling companions are not from the same time as you? Something they said, or even a different hairstyle or outfit,” Romana I asked thoughtfully.

Everyone stopped for a moment to think but eventually they all agreed that no, they had seen no indication of that.

“Well that seems like something worth investigating,” Liz said from where she stood next to an overwhelmed looking Brigadier. “If it’s true then... well I’m not sure what it would mean, but it sounds like important information.”

“I’m sure it is,” his seventh self said thoughtfully, then shock his head. “But never mind that right now. Doctor, a word?” he said, gesturing to their thirteenth self.

She looked a little surprised to be singled out and really the Fifth Doctor himself was also a little miffed that he would favour one of themselves over all the others, but he huffed and returned to searching the TARDIS databanks for an answer he knew he would not find as she followed their other self into the corridors.

Just outside the console room the Seventh Doctor turned to his future self. “I think you may need to make one small adjustment to the dormitory assignments,” he told her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things...  
> You wouldn't believe how long it took me to work out the dormitory arrangements. I went through so many different possibilities before settling on the one you got, and still I'm not completely satisfied with bits. Like would Ryan really want to room with his granddad and a load of men from the 70s? But no way am I changing it again now.
> 
> Then, because I wanted to have all the "kid" companions rooming together I had to make some guesses about ages. You think it would be fairly obvious but it's not. Like, Big Finish apparently says Jamie's 22 but I don't buy that, so yeah we're just going off whoever 'feels' young.
> 
> And I technically knew from the start that K9 should be here, but for some reason I never actually introduced him at any point in the first five chapters, which I think made it seem kinda strange when he suddenly appeared here, but I hopefully my hand waved comment about him being lost in the sea of legs covers it over a bit 😓
> 
> Lastly, I've always been a bit meh about Rose, so I hope that I didn't portray her unfairly as she did come off a bit negatively in this chapter, but I believe everything here is backed up by canon? Her annoyance at finding out the Doctor had previous companions is almost directly lifted from School Reunion, and her having difficulty accepting other regenerations of the Doctor comes from the minisode Born Again, so I *think* she's in character.


	7. SEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm sorry it's been months since I last updated this. I think this is just a story that you and I will have to accept takes a long time to update. But I've never abandoned it. I work on it very regularly, just only in small amounts.
> 
> Anyway, hopefully this chapter finally starts to live up to the Doctor/River tag a little.
> 
> Speaking of the tags, I decided to add more characters and relationships that have had some focus so far, because though I was very wary of spamming tags for characters that could only ever play a small part with such a big cast, I've now come to the conclusion that I don't update enough for this to ever feel like spam...

It had been many hours now since the mysterious event that had brought everyone was brought together, and apparently quite a few of them were getting tried. With this in mind the Doctors had suggested everyone who required regular sleep go to bed now and let the TARDIS simultaneously send them all to sleep telepathically. That way they would, right from the start, avoid problems that could arise from different sleep schedules.

This was why River was now heading to her dorm with Nardole and her parents. They still had at least an hour before the ship sent them to sleep but they wanted some time to prepare for bed and get settled in.

As they walked down a corridor River watched her parents with concern. Amy looked happy enough, if a little stressed but who wouldn’t be. Rory however kept nervously glancing at his wife with a mix of sadness and frustration.

She sighed. She knew exactly what his problem was as it was something that she was all too familiar with. Having your loved ones not know you in the same way you know them can be painful and she hated that her father was having to go through it.

“Ah, here we go!” Nardole said as he pointed to a door saying ‘Dorm 4’. She was a little surprised he was so familiar with the TARDIS. In fact she was a little surprised he was here at all. He and the Doctor had become good friends but he had never travelled with him like most of the people here… Nevertheless, she was very glad to have a friend here who she didn’t have to keep spoilers from.

He pushed open the door and strode into the room. “Oh good, our roommates are already here,” she heard him say as she followed him in. The room was circular and big (one might say _too_ big considering how close the doors in the corridor were to each other, but time lords were nothing if not good at dimensional engineering). There were two bunk beds on either side and adjacent to the door surprisingly enough there was also a double for Amy and Rory. Each sleeping place seemed to be decorated differently with personal effects and in a way the intended recipient would probably enjoy, and- sure to Nardole’s word, there were two people already sitting at the coffee table in the middle of the room.

“Hello,” Amy said cheerfully. “I’m Amy... obviously,” she gestured to her shirt, “and Rory here is my sort of fiancé, sort of husband. River is an acquaintance and Nardole I don’t know but apparently he’s friends with River.”

“I’m Steven, this is Donna. We’ve just met today,” the man said.

“Yeah, though I have met River Song before,” the woman said.

“You have?” River asked. She had thought most of her timeline crossing adventures with the Doctor were done, so that surprised her a little.

Strangely Donna adverted her eyes. “Yeah, it’s spoilers or whatever though,” she muttered.

That was enough to convince River that Donna really had met her. She was pleased about that. The Doctor had told her some fold stories of this friend.. and sad ones about her cruel fate. She pursed her lips and tried not to let any pity show on her face at that thought. “I look forward to it,” she said and smiled at her.

Donna didn’t smile back. She instead turned away and started leafing though a magazine in a way that seemed to River rather abrupt and forced.

Feeling slightly confused and put off River decided to climb up onto her buck situated above Nardole’s. The bedspread was cream and silky. Along the whole wall there was an inbuilt bookshelf. It was filled mostly with archaeology books but there was also a good few trashy mystery-trillers thrown in, which she hadn’t used to like but she had developed a tease for them after she had had to write one.

She was drawn out of her thoughts by a knock at the door. Before anyone could answer it, it opened and the thirteenth regeneration of the Doctor poked her head through, the seventh and twelfth also appearing behind her.

“Hay, glad to see you all are settling in,” she said. “But... well we’ve had a little problem come up with one of the other groups and decided it would best if one of them swapped dorms with someone and I thought Steven would get along with that other group, if that’s alright with you?” She asked, looking at Steven questioningly.

He looked at everyone uncertainty but nodded. “Yes I suppose so.”

“Good!” River’s Doctor said, clearly relieved. “Oh, by the way, to avoid causing anyone embarrassment, we’ve told the other group the problem was with someone in _your_ group, so don’t just mention the real reason or everyone might get offended and _then_ where would we be?”

“Wait a minute,” Donna said. “If the other group didn’t like this person then why should we have to trade Steven for them? He’s prett- ...He’s _nice_. He’s _pretty nice_.”

Steven gave her a strange look.

The Doctor looked around wide eyed. “Oh no no, I would say- _though I hate to pick sides_ \- that the rest of his group was in the wrong in this disagreement,” he hastily reassured them.

“Now hold up, if the rest of his group picks unfair fights then why should I have to take his place?” Steven asked with a voice of concern.

The Doctor swung his head to face him. “Did I say wrong? No it was more of a mutual disagreement where no one was wrong apart from wrong to for each other of course.”

“Yes really my fault for putting them together. Don’t know what I was thinking!” the Thirteenth Doctor added, gesturing dramatically.

River frowned suspiciously at her husband and his future self. They were definitely up to something though what she could not guess.

The Seventh Doctor looked to each of his future selves and sighed then turned to the young man. “Steven, I promise you that they are all very good people, _even Leela_... Well I would hope so... I’ve only met two of them myself so I suppose cannot _entirely_ _guarantee_ it, but knowing the sort of people I travel with I think there’s a _high probability_ they are, so why don’t I walk you over, introduce you and find out for myself if my judgment in companions has held up?”

Steven looked a smidge uncertain, but nonetheless nodded followed him out without hesitation.

Once they were gone the other Doctors looked around at the remaining residents of dorm 4. “Right. Great that’s all sorted,” the Thirteenth Doctor said, then she looked at her past self and nudged him, he looked at her startled for a second then he seemed to remember something.

“ _Ah_. River? Could I have a word?” he asked.

She gave him questing look. “Sure sweetie,” she answered and climbed down from the bed so she could stand in front of him.

He looked around at the other people in the room. “Not in here,” he said and lead her into the corridor.

“Well?” she asked, turning to watch him curiously.

He shock his head. “No, too many people could come along even here, we’ll talk in the library.”

He strode off down the corridor, and River hurried to keep up with his large strides.

“Doctor, is something wrong?” The secrecy and suspicious behaviour was starting to worry her now.

His steps slowed a little. “No,” he reassured. “I just need to explain something to you that I think may cause a problem if everyone knew.”

“But not something they _should_ know?” she asked doubtfully.

The Doctor shook his head in response then they walked in silence until they reached the library. She was pleased to see it still looked more or less the same as it had in their time, as it was probably the place they most liked to spend time together.

The Doctor looked around for a moment, also seeming pleased, then he turned to her. “Alright, I can explain now. Truth be told, I lied about why we’re swapping someone into your dorm.”

River raised an eyebrow. “Really,” she drolled.

He ignored her sarcasm and continued. “His name is Turlough. He didn’t do anything to trouble his roommates, and they didn’t do anything him him. No, it just that my past self was talking to my other past self- my further past self that is, and he realised that at that the boy came from a point in his timeline when he was being... manipulated.”

“...ok?” River said, not entirely sure where he was going with this.

The Doctor hesitated, which River found normally meant she wasn’t going to like the next thing he said. “Someone was trying make him to kill me,” he finally told her.

“...Well, you sure know how to pick them,” she commented after taking a moment to let that digest.

“Obviously he didn’t go though with it,” he unhelpfully reassured her. “And cut off from the Black Guardian’s influence it seems even less likely he would in this timeline.... but as of this moment he _is_ planning to kill me, and events _have_ been changed in ways we can’t entirely predict the outcome of, so I need you to keep an eye on him while not telling _anyone_ about this.”

River had several questions on her mind. Who was the Black Guardian? What was he holding over Turlough to make him generally consider killing someone. Why could no one else know? “Why me?” She asked.

He averted his eyes. “A lot of my friends have been known to have rather _over the top_ reactions to me being in so called ‘danger’. Rather _stupid, unpractical_ reactions. I worry that if any of them knew they would see him as an enemy. They wouldn’t mean harm, they just... care too much.”

River frowned. “And I don’t?” she asked, a pinch of anger slipping into her voice.

“No, no, I just mean you... you’re good at acting rationally,” he said. He was speaking hesitantly now, like he had sensed he was on thin ice.

The thing was, she knew he was right. She was the best person to watch this boy and not feel hostile about what he was planning to do to the man she loved. But her ability to detach hadn’t come naturally to her. It had been hard learnt through over a hundred years of pretending not to care, until eventually she was so used to it that she did it instinctively, and sometimes she resented that she had this skill, however useful could be.

“You realise a normal wife cares when someone is planning to kill her husband!” River snapped at him.

“Do you? Do you care?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?” she responded incredulously.

“Because to me it seems like you’re more bothered about me asking you to watch him than the fact that he’s planning to kill me.”

River stared at him feeling hurt. “Well it’s like you said, he’s unlikely to go through with it as he didn’t last time, and I know you’ve faced much more dangerous opponents.”

“Ah there! see! That’s the logic I knew you would used!” He took her face in he hands and grinned. “I know you care River, I know you and I know your heart, even if didn’t for too long, I do now, and of course if you really don’t want to watch him-“

“No,” River interrupted him and shock her head. “I’ll watch him. I couldn’t not. It’s just- “ she pursed, wondering if she was overreacting. But this was the Doctor and she knew it mattered to him what she was thinking, overreaction or not. “It’s just, with hindsight- I know I spent too much time as this girl who put herself through pain for the sake of living out a tragic love story with someone she thought of like a god. Who never talked to him about that pain because she thought it didn’t matter, that it would scare him and because some mad part of her thought suffering in silence was _romantic_. And I _know_ that this is nothing in comparison, but _he_ always thought she was strong enough to handle anything without getting emotional too, and in combination with pretending I don’t care when my mother calls me an acquaintance... It reminds me a bit of before. I guess I just thought we were done with these things, at least for another fourteen years.”

She closed her eyes. Over the last ten years the Doctor had slowly helped her feel more comfortable opening up, but still expressing negative emotions made her feel very vulnerable.

She felt one of his hands stroke her cheek gently. “River, it’s not it’s going to be like before. Yes you will have to keep secrets, but you won’t have to keep them on your own. Yes they may hurt sometimes, but you won’t have to hide the damage. Not around _me_.”

River laughed dryly. “Yes, sure.... Apart from eleven thirteenths of the yous present. Them I imagine I’ll have to pretend around a great deal.”

The Doctor frowned. “But why would you want to talk to any of them anyway? They’re just annoying, _all_ of them. Definitely not worth your time,” he told her with what looked like genuine conviction.

She truly laughed at that, which despite his annoyance cursed him to perk up a little. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said as she broke free of his grasp and turning to leave the room.

“River, don’t you go forgetting that we’re a team,” he called after her. She smiled to herself at that as she closed the library door and headed back in the direction of her dorm. She had a shady companion to spy on after all.

* * *

The Fifth Doctor looked up as his twelfth self returned to the control room. It was just themselves, the Romanas and of course K9 in there now- which was to say there was a combined total of fifteen bodies between the two time lords, so really it was still inconveniently crowded.

They were all supposedly trying to figure out the cause of the situation, but so far they hadn’t had much luck. They had managed to find a way to stop arguing with each other though. Specifically, not talking to each other. Did that help with their continual dead ends? No. But neither did the arguing.

“I want to know why what ever was erasing you from time targeted you and the TARDIS but none of the rest of us,” Romana I questioned thoughtfully. Of course none of them minded Romana starting discussions, because she was no where near as annoying as his other selves. Besides, they wouldn’t have been able to stop her if they wanted to.

“I’ve made more enemies than the rest of you combined. This is clearly a personal grudge against me, and the TARDIS was just targeted to add insult to injury,” his eleventh self said darkly.

The Doctor frowned. “If that was the case they why bring all our companions here at all? Because, at a guess, I would say that _had_ this hypothetical enemy succeeded in wiping out me and the TARDIS, my companions would have returned to their lives as if they had never met me. And yes, the ones brought in our TARDISes may just be incidental, but if our theory about there being two methods is correct, then something brought an awful lot of people into this TARDIS very deliberately.”

“And if you think about it, without the extra help, we may never have been able to save you, so it was a very counterproductive from the time high jackers point of view,” Romana I pointed out.

“What if that’s the point?” said his thirteenth self, her eyes widen with excitement. “Maybe someone else sent all the other people to help us. Maybe someone knew we’d need it.”

“It was useful for _some_ of us to be there but all of us. Why are they here?” Romana II asked doubtfully.

“Maybe their use is yet to come,” his thirteenth self suggested.

“That’s possible, but even so,” he said. “What could even do such a thing?

Everyone was silent in thought for a moment, until the voice of his eighth self piped up. “I do don’t suppose the TARDIS herself may have...?” he timidly suggested.

“Is that even possible?” his second self asked.

“Well I suppose she contains all the technology required for a time and space teleport, and can send and receive messages from across time...” the Doctor said slowly, considering the idea as he spoke, “so she could _theoretically_ send a message to herself at different points in time, telling them to send a companion to the moment when everyone was pulled together.”

“On her own? I don’t think she do something so huge if it wasn’t an excepted procedure and I hardly think that’s the kind of thing the time lords would program,” Romana II pointed out.

“I think my TARDIS is a lot more than what the time lords programmed her to be,” the Thirteenth Doctor said firmly, then her voice grew soft and affectionate. “She’s... _grown_. She cares for people, she cares for _me_.”

“Looking after it’s time lord is one of a TARDIS’s prime functions,” his first self said.

“Apparently even when said time lord stole her. Bit of an oversight if you ask me,” Romana I added.

“That’s not what I mean,” his thirteenth self frustratedly responded to his first.

“Even if you are right in saying the TARDIS or anyone would do such a thing, and I am not saying you are,” the Third Doctor started. “I think it’s rather an assumption that all those people have some unknown part to play, and is it not rather a coincidence that they all just so happen to be people I’m fond of in the past or future, when many likely more qualified persons have probably stepped food on the ship at one point or another?”

“Well I think it makes more sense than it being part of the baddies plan,” his thirteenth self stated. There was a hesitant murmur of agreement from some people but doubt from others.

“So we really understand less than we did before this conversation? Is that the take away?” his twelfth self asked bitterly.

“Of course not,” his seventh self snapped. “Knowing where your knowledge falls short is itself an _invaluable_ piece of knowledge.”

There were a few hummus of approval, but then the room fell back into a comfortable silence as everyone tried to unravel this impossible mystery in light of the new ideas just discussed.

Slowly they all set about making themselves look busy again. Most of the Doctors stood at the console. Some of them worked with other bits and pieces of technology that they had dragged in and connected up. Romana II was sitting reading the TARDIS manual that she had retrieved from one of the past TARDISes (apparently the Doctor of this TARDIS had lost hers somewhere?), though she occasionally would glance up at her previous self and his previous self who were working together in sync. (She looked like something was bothering her but he suspected it would bother her more if he asked her about it.)

The Doctor sighed. Despite how hard they were all trying, he felt that they were simply missing most of the pieces needed to put this together. But what else could they do but try?

“I say, what are you doing out here?” his first self said.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder and saw Adric hovering around the entrance to the console room. “Adric, is everything ok? You should get to bed or the TARDIS might send you to sleep on the floor,” he warned.

The boy walked into the room properly and crossed his arms. “They’ve looked me out of the room,” he told him.

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Who has?” he asked.

“My roommates!” he exclaimed.

“Your roommates?” That surprised and confused him. He searched his brain to remember who he was rooming with.

“Yes, that’s what just I said,” Adric responded.

“Remind me, who are your roommates?” he asked, giving up trying to remember.

“They said their names were... Jamie, Zoe and... Ace,” he said, giving himself moments to think.

“Really? And all of them shut you out?” He didn’t know this Ace, but Jamie and Zoe were always very good, responsible kids.

“Yes all of them,” Adric huffed, clearly annoyed at having to repeat his story so much.

“Are you sure? It doesn’t sound like them,” the Doctor asked nonetheless.

“I think...” he said slowly, “I may have said something to upset them,” he admitted.

The Doctor sighed. “I had better deal with this,” he said to everyone in the console room, then he took Adric by the shoulder and led him back to where the dormitories were.

He knocked on the door Adric indicated as his dorm. “Hello? It’s me, the Doctor,” he called.

“We’ve not letting him in,” Zoe’s muffed voice replied from the other side.

The Doctor looked at Adric who just shrugged.

“Zoe? Jamie? What’s the matter?” he asked, and tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge.

“He’s a bloody piece of work, that’s what,” someone else said.

He sighed. “Zoe? I’m not going to force you to stay with him, but please come out so we can talk about this?” he asked, appealing to the most responsible one.

At first there was murmur of voices on the other side of the door, probably debating it, but then there was the sound of something heavy being dragged away from the door and Zoe pocked her head out.

He smiled at her. “Zoe. It’s nice to see you again despite the circumstances.”

She nodded, opened the door fully and stepped out. “Quite,” she said, though of course for her there had been no absence in which she could miss him, and there never would be. She will forget him before she had the chance.

Behind her Jamie and the other girl also stepped out into the corridor.

He rubbed his hands together. “Well, let’s get down to business shall we? What seems to be the disagreement?”

Zoe sighed. “It started when we were asking each other about our interests. I said I was a mathematician. He said that he was too, showed us all that star-“

“When she says showed, she means he was super show-offy like,” the other girl- Ace interjected.

“Well I wasn’t going to mention that, but I cannot say it did not occur to me,” Zoe agreed. “But regardless, I suggested we could work on some complex equations together, and he insinuated I might not be up to his level. I, of cause, assured him that was not the case and he said-“

“He said ‘most people just aren’t capable of true mathematical greatness’ but like, really condescending, like he though he was better than other people,” Ace interrupted again. “So I said ‘most people are capable than more than you think’ then he said ‘so they’re just lazy?’ and I said ‘no, they just care about other stuff more than maths,” and he said- and I ain’t joking he really said ‘why? Being smart is what makes me better than other people.”

She was clearly fuming, and Adric at least had the sense to look nervous.

“Of course we both objected,” Zoe continued. “We thought that academic knowledge did not translate to human value, but he wouldn’t relent and after some arguing he said that he wasn’t surprised we were acting like this because ‘girls are always so stubborn’.

“Anyway then we kicked him out and barricaded the door,” Ace concluded.

The Doctor sighed. At least he finally understood the problem, but dear lord, he was getting too old for this.

“Jamie, where are you in all of this?” He asked the one person who had kept quiet.

“Me? Oh well I didn’t alike what he said because it suggests he’s thinks himself better than me because he knows this mathermicanics, and also to be honest with ye-“ he looked at Zoe and Ace “-those lasses are kinda scary so I thought I had better back them up,” he said in a half whisper.

Zoe frowned. “I’m not scary Jamie,” she said.

“Ye knew me name without me ever having told ya! That’s kinda scary, or at least I think so.”

“Can we just get back to the problem Professor?” Ace said.

The Doctor blinked, looked around and then turned back to the girl. “Do you mean me?” He asked, surprised by the title she had given him.

“Yeah. ‘cause you’re his past self right? That’s what you all said.”

“Yes yes, but I’m not the Professor, I’m _the Doctor_ ,” he protested.

Ace rolled her eyes. “Alright, _Doctor_ then. Can we just get back to the problem?”

The Doctor nodded and spun around on his heel. “Yes yes, we should. Adric? I rather think you should apologise.”

Adric looked annoyed. “Me? I admit I could have choose better words but they clearly overreacted!”

“I would have rather they came and talked to me instead of kicking you out and barricading the door, but regardless, quite frankly I believe you are in wrong here Adric,” he said sternly, but then sighed and pit his hand on his shoulder. “I know a lot of this comes from your upbringing and I also fear that some blame falls on me for not teaching you better sooner.” He likes to think he did eventually, but he wasn’t sure exactly where in his timeline the boy was from. “But I’ll certainly have to learn now as I think you’ll find many of my friends on this ship not as tolerant as Nyssa and Tegan.”

“I didn’t mean to offend them, really,” Adric told him.

“Ok, well that’s a good star. Now, what shall you do about it seeing as you did offered them?” The Doctor asked.

Adric parsed for a moment then turned to the other three teens. “I’m sorry for what I said. I got annoyed and carried away,” he said. The Doctor thought it was a decent enough apology, despite the hint of reluctance he sensed from him.

“Why should we trust you won’t do something like that again?” Zoe asked, at the same moment as Ace said “Apology not accepted.”

“Why not?” Adric asked Ace with a tone of annoyance.

“‘Cause I don’t like ya, and you only apologised ‘cause the Doctor told you to,” she said.

“No one will ever improve if they are never told when they made mistakes,” the Doctor said.

“We told him when he made a mistake but he didn’t listen to _us_ ,” Zoe pointed out.

“He didn’t listen because he didn’t trust your opinion, which I am telling him now, was another mistake,” he said looked to Adric. “Zoe is a genuine genius, and though I don’t know her I don’t doubt Ace’s intelligence, and Jamie... Jamie has a great heart.”

“Right!” Jamie agreed, smiling for a moment then frowned. “Eh?” he asked after he had a second to think through what he heard.

“Now then, of course I won’t force any of you you to share a dorm, but I would appreciate it if you gave it one more shot as I genuinely think Adric will try to be better, and I know you girls will tell him when he makes mistakes, which as I said, is exactly what he needs,” he said to the girls. “Besides, Jamie can’t be left without backup around these scary two.”

“Now wait a moment...” Jamie interjected.

Zoe giggled. “Alright. For Jamie,” she agreed.

Ace crossed her arms. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered and strode back into the room.

Everyone else look around at each other uncertainty.

“I think...” Zoe said. “I think for her that means ok.”

The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed.

Zoe and Adric turned and followed Ace into their room, but Jamie lingered behind. “Doctor?” he asked.

“Yes Jamie?”

“Why am I in a room with the two lasses? It doesn’ta seem appropriate.”

The Doctor frowned. “I don’t know, I didn’t put you in here- or rather, I did, but not _yet_.”

“Eh?” Jamie asked, clearly confused.

“Never mind,” the Doctor told him. “I’m guessing I put you in here because I thought you would prefer to share a room with girls your own age than a group of older men, but if I makes you uncomfortable you can move.”

Jamie thoughtfully shook his head. “It’s more that I don’t want the lassies to feel uncomfortable,” he said with a concerned look on his face.

The Doctor smiled at him. He was such a nice young lad. He really had missed him.

“I can almost guarantee they won’t mind,” he told him. He couldn’t be completely sure because he only knew one of them, but Ace looked like the sort of person that wouldn’t care about such things.

“I suppose, in that case, I’ll stay here,” Jamie decided.

“Good lad,” the Doctor told him. “Now hurry to bed before the TARDIS za-“ He stopped when Jamie’s eyes drooped and he slumped down in the doorway.

He sighed and looped his arms around the boy and pulled him into the room. He carefully deposited him onto his bed and tucked him in. He did the same for Ace who had also fallen asleep on the floor. Adric and Zoe just needed tucking in as they had fallen asleep in their bunks but slumped forward awkwardly as if they had been sitting up at the time. He paused for a moment as he straightened the covers around the boy and looking down at his sleeping face. He reached out and stroked his hair as he thought about the conversation he had had with Nyssa and Tegan earlier, he had to force himself turn away before tears escaped his eyes.

He glanced around, making double sure everyone looking fine and comfortable. They did so he whispered goodnight then quietly left.

Once in the hallway he had to crack open the opposite door, just to check Susan and her roommates were alright.

The room was dark, but in the light form the open door he could just about make out the four figures soundly asleep in their beds. He quietly closed the door and headed back towards the control room, satisfied they were fine and sleeping peacefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five is a good dad.
> 
> -I think if there is one companion that immediately get into an argument with his roommates it would be Adric.  
> Also, while I'm not that keen on Adric myself, I'm not into writing a character just to bash them so I'm gonna give him character development. Don't worry.
> 
> -If River seems a little ooc, it's intentional because this is River 10 years into living with the Doctor on Darillium and I imagine she would have softened a bit and grown to be more open.


End file.
